Introduction Flashcards
(12 cards)
How does microbiology affect product manufacturing?
Potential for contamination, this is limited by following GMP
Spoilage can cause decomposition of APIA or excipients
Could mean the drug is understrength, unstable, or contaminated with toxin material.
What must be considered when considering manufacture and microbiology?
Must include
Preservation
Sources of contamination - where will the contamination occur
Factors which prevent spoilage - what conditions will affect spoilage
What are some examples of microbiology being beneficial?
The two main groups of drugs manufactured by microorganisms are antibiotics and steroids produced by industrial fermentation.
Insulin is also produced using recombinant DNA technology, where gene cloning allows insertion of insulin genes to be inserted into bacteria, which then produces identical human insulin.
Some Vaccines can also be made this way.
What is the history of antibiotic use?
First therapeutically used was penicillin in 1940s.
Many further classes discovered over next two decades
Success so great that overuse lead to resistance development, and a resurge of infectious diseases in 1990s
What is the current status of infections diseases?
Global estimation greater than 20 million deaths
The five greatest groups of infectious diseases are respiratory, diarrhoeal, HIV, TB and malaria.
Infant mortality and developing countries are at greatest risk.
Why do microbial infections continue to exist?
New pathogens continue to emerge, microorganisms are incredibly good at adapting and changing to resist or overcome medicines.
IE resurgence of Ebola, mortality of 50%. It is extremely virulent, and causes death so often than spreading is limited, which is also poor for the virus.
What can be done to reduce the spread or prevent the occurrence of infectious diseases?
Monitoring the incidence of diseases to reduce spread.
Vaccination programmes are important for protection of the population
Why are infections contracted in hospitals important?
Huge ongoing problem
Causes thousands of deaths annually
Increases length of hospital stay and Thus increases costs and limits hospital resources.
Increases spread of resistant microorganisms such as MRSA methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus, which are difficult to treat and pan resistance often causes death as no antibiotics work
Why is there antibiotic resistance?
Antibiotic resistance has increased in all classes of pathogenic microorganisms.
Two main reasons for this spread are :
In appropriate prescribing of antibiotics- appx 1 in 7 prescriptions are antibiotics, of which appx 50% are not appropriate - they are not clinically indicated for that infection, as many of them are viral which antibiotics do not have any effect against
Decreased r & d by industry as many pharma companies have abandoned anti microbial research as they have limited profitability.
What are the groups of microorganisms?
Five main groups which are
Bacteria - prokaryotes which lack nucleus/internal organelle. Simple
Fungi including yeasts
Protozoa
Algae - the only group which doesn’t contain a human pathogen, but secrete toxins
Fungi Protozoa and algae are eukaryotes
Viruses - not capable of independent replication and require to infect a suitable host to propagate.
How can microorganisms be classified?
The rational scheme has been constructed in which microbes can be categorised.
Kingdoms, class,order,family, genus, species
As with all organisms, names of microorganisms must written in italics
It uses a binomial system of nomenclature is used stating genus and species IE E. coli
Handwritten, underline rather than italics.
What is the relevance of microbiology in pharmacy?
They are important because they cause contamination of medicines which can cause product spoilage.
They are also responsible for acute and chronic infectious diseases
They are also important as they can be used in certain beneficial manufacture processes
