How They Make Drugs

[dannyday5821]

I was reading about some antihistamine I've been taking, and it's interesting to read, but I was curious to know "how" they know all that stuff about receptors in the brain... I just don't understand it! I'm curious to know how they find these receptors, and then figure out how to make a drug that has the effect they want on those receptors...

It's interesting to read but I'd like to read a little more about HOW they found all this information out in the first place!

[doctordb]

'Brain story' or 'the human mind explained' by prof Susan greenfield would be ideal reading material for you danny.

[woofgang]

much of it through animal experimentation sadly.

[LazyGun]

Well if you are talking specifically about Histamine for instance, the receptors are not so much in the brain as scattered about the body, and the presence of histamine was found through the study of the bodies immune response system.
Histamine was identified as a chemical produced during an immune response, and from there they were able to identify which parts of the body were sensitive to histamine.

All of this research comes down to identifying a marker for a protein most commonly that the body produces in response to a particular stimulus, and then identifying where in the body that marker is most prevelant, then trying to figure out why :)

Again, for antihistamine specifically, you might find this article of interest;
http://voices.yahoo.com/what-histamines-why-we-them-491407.html

[DangerUXD]

Huge amounts of research, experiments, vivisection etc, licensing, human trials. That's why some pills cost 1p hundredweight to make but they charge £20 a tablet.

[Peter Pedant]

three year uni course in pharmacology ?

(not pharmacy or chemistry, those are different)