Pharmacy

There are numerous diverse factors affecting the rate of gelation or deposition of the silica as well as the morphology of deposited silica. Betancor and Luckarift16 have summarised four major chemical factors in silica deposition as: specific interactions between biomolecules and ...

The potential for expanding the variety of enzymic methods for siloxane bond formation is explored. Three enzymes, Rhizopus oryzae lipase (ROL), lysozyme and phytase are reported to catalyse the condensation of the model compound, trimethylsilanol, formed in situ from trimethylethoxysilane, to produce hexamethyldisiloxane in aqueous media at 25 °C and pH 7. Thermal denaturation and reactant inhibition experiments were conducted to better understand the catalytic role of these enzyme candidates. It was found that enzyme activities were significantly reduced following thermal treatment, suggesting a potential key-role of the enzyme active sites in the catalysis. Similarly, residue-specific modification of the key-amino acids believed to participate in the ROL catalysis also had a significant effect on the silicon bio-catalysis, indicating that the catalytic triad of the lipase may be involved during the enzyme-mediated formation of the silicon-oxygen bond. E. coli phytase was found to be particularly effective at catalysing the condensation of trimethylsilanol in a predominantly organic medium consisting of 95% acetonitrile and 5% water. Whereas the use of enzymes in silicon chemistry is still very much a developing and frontier activity, the results presented herein give some grounds for optimism that the variety of enzyme mediated reactions will continue to increase and may one day become a routine element in the portfolio of the synthetic silicon chemist.

Hepcidin is a peptide hormone, which has a major role in maintaining iron homeostasis in mammals. It acts as a negative regulator of iron entry into the systemic circulation from macrophages and duodenal enterocytes and provides the predominant mechanism for controlling ...

Mitochondria are the principal destination for labile iron (LI), making these organelles particularly susceptible to oxidative damage upon exposure to ultraviolet A (UVA, 320-400 nm), the oxidizing component of sunlight. The LI-mediated oxidative damage caused by UVA to mitochondria leads to necrotic cell death via ATP depletion. Therefore targeted removal of mitochondrial LI via highly specific tools from these organelles may be an effective approach to protect the skin cells against the harmful effects of UVA. In this work, we designed a mitochondria-targeted hexadentate (tricatechol-based) iron chelator linked to mitochondria- homing SS-like peptides. The photoprotective potential of this compound against UVA-induced oxidative damage and cell death was evaluated in cultured primary skin fibroblasts. Our results show that this compound provides unprecedented protection against UVA-induced mitochondrial damage, ATP depletion and the ensuing necrotic cell death in skin fibroblasts a...

Mephedrone is a new psychoactive substance known to be unstable in biological matrices stored at room temperature or refrigerated. While the instability of mephedrone has been investigated before, there is currently no data regarding the stability of mephedrone metabolites. In this study, a liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method for the simultaneous quantification of mephedrone and five of its phase I metabolites (dihydro-mephedrone, nor-mephedrone, hydroxytolyl-mephedrone, 4-carboxy-mephedrone and dihydro-nor-mephedrone) in human whole blood has been developed and validated. Samples were extracted by a mixed mode solid phase extraction and analyzed on a pentafluorophenylpropyl column. The method was successfully validated for selectivity, linearity (0.2-2 to 10-100 ng/mL), limits of detection (50-500 pg/mL) and quantification (200-2000 pg/mL), precision (0.924-8.27%), accuracy (86.6-115%), carryover, recovery (32.5-88.3%) and matrix effects (71.0-108%). Analyte stabi...

Background Several clinical pharmacy activities are common to UK hospitals. It is not clear whether these are provided at similar levels, and whether they take similar amounts of time to carry out. Objective To quantify and compare clinical pharmacist ward activities between different UK hospitals. Setting Seven acute hospitals in the Greater London area (UK). Methods A list of common ward activities was developed. On five consecutive days, pharmacists visiting hospital wards documented total time spent and how many of each activity they undertook. Results were analysed by hospital. The range and number of activities per 100 occupied bed days, and per 24 beds were compared. Main outcome measure Time spent on wards and numbers of each activity undertaken. Results Pharmacists logged a total of 2291 h carrying out 40,000 activities. 4250 changes to prescriptions were made or recommended. 5901 individual medication orders were annotated for clarity or safety. For every 24 beds visited, mean time spent was 230 min-seeing 6.2 new patients, carrying out 3.9 calculations and 1.3 patient consultations, checking and authorising 1.8 discharge prescriptions, and providing staff with information twice. Other activities varied significantly, not all could be explained by differences in hospital specialties or Information Technology systems. Conclusion This is the first detailed comparison of clinical pharmacy ward activities between different hospitals. There are some typical levels of activities carried out. Wide variations in other activities could not always be explained. Despite a large number of contacts, pharmacists reported very few consultation sessions with patients.

The effective dissemination and implementation of health service interventions into practice requires a range of strategic and systematic approaches. This paper applies a conceptual implementation framework to the evaluation of a hospital-wide clinical pharmacy initiative, a redesign of the discharge medication prescription pathway. The influencing factors and strategies used to overcome potential negative influences are described and assessed.