• Question: How do drugs like paracetamol interact with different types of proteins in order to be effective in making you feel better?

    Asked by anon-252600 to William on 1 May 2020.
    • Photo: William Glass

      William Glass answered on 1 May 2020:


      This is a really interesting question!

      Any drug works by binding to (usually) proteins. Proteins are basically very very small biological machines that carry out all sort of functions in your body (e.g. controlling your heartbeat, allowing you to see, digestion, when you get sleepy… basically anything you can think of!).

      We can find out the 3D structure of proteins using very complex techniques in the lab and work out how they move (I do that using simulations!). Once we know the shape of the protein we can then design drugs (small molecules) that can fit inside them to change how they move. In terms of stopping pain, we can target the proteins that are responsible for making the pain response with a drug that we know will fit really well. For example, you may have heard of Morphine. This binds to a protein called a mu-delta opiod receptor (a protein important in pain signalling!) and stops it from helping to make pain signals.

      As for how exactly paracetamol works, we still aren’t 100% sure! We know how lots of drugs work but paracetamol is a little bit of a mystery!

Comments