How Medicines Work

This highly illustrated volume will describe, through clear diagrams and concise text, how the most prescribed, as well as new medicines, work in the body for a broad range of diseases. By bringing this knowledge together in one place, we will seek to answer the question, "What is the impact of the accelerating knowledge in biology, drug research and medical sciences on the development and approval of medicines for the treatment of a wide range of diseases". Furthermore, information on how a successful drug works can make the case for a particular therapy and provide an informed dialog between a patient and physician, or a professor and a student, or a regulator and pharmaceutical scientist.

With the continuing explosion of medical information, the book addresses the following themes:

• What topics should the medical schools teach the next generation of students?
• How to serve a medical practitioner who wishes to be better informed about the latest medicines?
• What about the regulatory agencies where the safety and effectiveness of a new drug can be better evaluated in the context of the biology of a particular disease.
• The advent of personalized medicine teaches that each patient is unique, which requires an understanding of the confluence of genetics, physiology, biochemistry and pharmacology for a specific drug.

This book breaks important new ground by focusing on the cellular biochemistry of selected diseases and how the respective drug works, using a concise, focused and non-technical graphic review.