Membrane preparations of cells expressing the cloned rat hypothalamus melanocortin receptor, MC3, have been photoaffinity labelled using a radiolabelled photoreactive analogue of a-MSH, ['251-Tyr2,Nle4,0-Phe7,ATB-Lys"]a-MSH. SDS-PAGE followed by autoradiography showed a single band at 53-56 kDa for the native receptor or 35 kDa after deglycosylated with PNGase F, consistent with the predicted cDNA sequence. Receptor binding studies with a-MSH, y-MSH and [Nle4,0-Phe'Ja-MSH established that a-MSH and y-MSH had similar affinities while [Nle4,D-Phe7]a-MSH bound 100 times more strongly. These results suggest that the receptor recognises the conserved 'core sequence' (-Met-Glu/Gly-His-Phe-Arg-Trp-) of MSH/ACTH peptides. The binding affinities of alanine-substituted analogues of a-MSH were determined to investigate the role of individual residues in ligand-receptor interactions. While in the terminal regions only the replacement of Tyr' reduced the affinity of the peptide, replacement of Met4, Phe', Arg* and Trp' within the peptide core led to a significant loss of affinity. Glu' appeared unimportant for receptor recognition.

Objective: The Pharmacy profession has evolved from its conventional drug focused basis to an advanced patient focused basis over the years. Accordingly, many universities worldwide are modifying their Curricula in order to reflect this change.Methods: This paper investigates and compares the syllabi of B. Pharm for different Universities in Africa and Asia. Pharmacy Syllabi of the included Universities is presented in the form of Sectors, i.e. Pharmaceutical Sciences, Clinical Pharmacy, Biomedical, Training and University Requirements. Percentage analysis of credit hours allotted to courses of each Sector performed with special emphasis on courses of Pharmacognosy and Pharmaceutical Science in comparison to courses of Clinical Pharmacy.There is a substantial decrease in teaching hours of Pharmaceutical Sciences, particularly Pharmacognosy within the B. Pharm Curricula of some of the included Universities at the expense of including more courses in Clinical Pharmacy.Results: Pharmacists are scientists as well as clinicians, and basic science knowledge such as pharmaceutical sciences, give pharmacy graduates critical scientific foundations, in this regard, the reduction in pharmaceutical sciences content in a pharmacy curriculum may compromise the competence of pharmacy graduates, as the drug experts from the basic science level to the clinical level.Conclusion: The impact of reducing pharmaceutical science content, may compromise the Pharmacist ability to assume certain duties in the countries included in the study. This in consideration that Clinical Pharmacy is not widely practiced in the investigated countries and its application is limited compared to other job opportunities available for Pharmacy graduates of these countries such as Community Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Industries, marketing and sales and utilization of natural resources of medicinal plants by research and development units.Recommendations on how to avoid such decrease in teaching hours of Pharmaceutical Courses and fulfil the job requirements in the above countries are given.

Therapeutics proteins require protection against several sources of chemical and /or physical instabilities. One such physical instability is the high tendency of protein molecules to aggregate under a wide range of processing and storage conditions. Aggregates of the protein drug may enhance the product's immunogenicity and could compromise its efficacy. There are two major pathways of protein aggregation; these are aggregation of native protein conformations (colloidal instability) or aggregation of partially denatured proteins (non-native protein aggregation). Certain solution conditions, which reduce aggregation through one pathway, may lead to an increase in aggregation through the other pathway; therefore, a logical balanced formulation procedure should be implemented in order to reduce aggregation due to both pathways. For certain protein molecules, optimizing solution conditions might not result in the required reduction in protein aggregation; in this case, alteration in the protein structure might be required. This alteration can be, either in vivo through protein coding gene manipulation or synthetic such as protein PEGylation. There are two aggregation pathways for protein in liquid formulations, aggregation due to conformational stability and aggregation due to colloidal instability. Protein melting temperature (Tm) and time-dependent rate of thermal unfolding can assess conformational stability of a protein while measurement of second virial coefficients from static light scattering or protein precipitation in the presence of a salting out salt such as ammonium sulphate can be used to assess colloidal stability of a protein.

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Asthma is treated mainly with inhaled medications in several forms, including the pressurized Metered Dose Inhaler (pMDI). Unfortunately, appropriate delivery of the chosen drug depends heavily on the patient's inhaler technique. The Global initiative for Asthma (GINA) suggests that the correct use of inhalers is an important feature in preventing exacerbations of asthma. Several studies have shown that poor use of the inhaler device is the main feature in poorly controlled disease. Many asthma patients derive incomplete benefit from their inhaled medication because they do not use their inhaler devices correctly or they fail to maintain the correct inhaler technique. This is clearly one of the major limitations in treating Asthma. Informing patients about their asthma could help in achieving better control over their asthma symptoms. Asthma patients need also to be shown and trained on how to use their prescribed inhaler devices properly. Not only various patients' characteristics but also the device that patients use to inhale the medicine has an effect on correct inhalation technique. Further, there is evidence that the use of multiple inhaler types confuses the patient and increases the risk of errors in their inhaler use.