Biochemical Pharmacology Lecture Notes

This is the web version of my biochemical pharmacology lecture notes. I use these notes in my own fourth year undergraduate and graduate courses on this subject.

The notes are based on the book Biochemical Pharmacology (Wiley 2012). Wiley has agreed to return the copyright for the book and for these notes to my coauthors and me, so I am now able to distribute them for free:

The notes and the textbook cover the same topics. The notes contain a larger number of illustrations; almost all illustrations in the slides are also found in the notes. The textbook provides more background and in-depth discussion of selected topics.

You might also be interested in my lecture notes and slides on human metabolism.

Vancomycin sequesters the substrate of the transpeptidase reaction

The picture above illustrates the action mode of vancomycin. This antibiotic inhibits the cross-linking of peptidoglycan strands in the bacterial cell wall, at the same stage as does penicillin. However, while penicillin blocks the enzyme that carries out the cross-linking reaction, vancomycin (shown in stick representation) wraps itself around the peptide substrate (shown as spheres).

Contact

You can reach me by email: mpalmer (at) heresy (dot) is.