Every now and then I’ll read that drug X was originally created searching for a cure to disease A, but then they find out its a cure for B instead. How do scientists set out to design a chemical that does specific things? And is it just by chance they discover that it helps with, say, erectile dysfunction and market it that way? Especially when the addition of one atom can seemingly vastly change molecule properties.
In: Chemistry
For the example of viagra they knew that blocking a protein called PDE -5 would dialate blood vessels. Great said Pfizer! We will work on drugs to block PDE-5.
So they made one and tested it on animals. They seemed to respond well, and didn’t have any negative side effects.
So they gave it to people and it was… okay. It didn’t seem to work very well for agina. But they did notice something weird – male patients would lie on their stomachs. A nurse pointed out they were embarrassed about erections.
Pfizer scientists realised the drug was actually blocking the PDE-5…just it was doing it in the penis, not the heart.
And that is a good example of how these other outcomes happen. The human body uses many different signalling hormones and a huge amount of our medicine is about blocking them or encouraging them.
And cleverly the body uses the same molecule for multiple things.
So for example, dopamine controls both reward pathways and motor control. Which means if you are trying to invent a Parkinson’s drug to help with motor control, you might accidentally invent something that helps with ADHD. Possibly. Its far far far more complicated than that of course in reality.
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