science

Pharmaceutical bioinformatics

Pharmaceutical bioinformatics is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Pharmaceutical bioinformatics rather than just read about it. In short: Pharmaceutical bioinformatics is a research field related to bioinformatics but with the focus on studying biological and chemical processes in the pharmaceutical area; to understand how xenobiotics interact with the human body and the drug discovery process. Introduction Whereas traditional bioinformatics is a wide subject it has a large focus on molecular biology, pharmaceutical bioinformatics more specifically ta…

Key takeaways

Pharmaceutical bioinformatics belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Pharmaceutical bioinformatics to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Pharmaceutical bioinformatics from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Pharmaceutical bioinformatics is a research field related to bioinformatics but with the focus on studying biological and chemical processes in the pharmaceutical area; to understand how xenobiotics interact with the human body and the drug discovery process.

Introduction Whereas traditional bioinformatics is a wide subject it has a large focus on molecular biology, pharmaceutical bioinformatics more specifically targets chemical-biological interaction and exploratory focus of chemical and biological interactors using e.g. cheminformatics and chemometrics methods. Methods include, apart from many general bioinformatics methods, ligand-based modeling such as Quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) and proteochemometrics, computer-aided molecular design, chembioinformatics databases, algorithms for chemical software, and biopharmaceutical chemistry including analyses of biological activity and other issues related to drug discovery.

In silico metabolism prediction One of the major fields within pharmaceutical bioinformatics is the in silico metabolism prediction of drug candidates. This field is in turn divided into three tasks;

Predicting the occurrence of an interaction between a compound and an enzyme, Predicting the location in the compound that takes part in the interaction, i.e. the site of metabolism (SOM), Predicting the outcome from the interaction, i.e. the resulting metabolite product. There are several existing tools trying to solve these tasks, e.g. SMARTCyp and MetaPrint2D predicts the SOM for chemical compounds.

Software and tools There are many software tools for pharmaceutical bioinformatics. An example of an open source tool is the Bioclipse workbench.

Conferences One conference specific to Pharmaceutical Bioinformatics is "International Conference on Pharmaceutical Bioinformatics" (ICPB) (http://www.icpb.net)

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Pharmaceutical bioinformatics

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Pharmaceutical bioinformatics claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Pharmaceutical bioinformatics before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Pharmaceutical bioinformatics ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Pharmaceutical bioinformatics

In research: Pharmaceutical bioinformatics appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Pharmaceutical bioinformatics in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Pharmaceutical bioinformatics is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bioinformatics, Drug discovery, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Pharmaceutical bioinformatics outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Pharmaceutical bioinformatics in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Pharmaceutical bioinformatics means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Pharmaceutical bioinformatics out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Pharmaceutical bioinformatics in simple terms?

Why does Pharmaceutical bioinformatics matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Pharmaceutical bioinformatics?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Pharmaceutical bioinformatics.