The Vanco Avenger

Well, here we are. Another week has come and gone. Midterms have just begun/ended and the semester is now in full swing.
I have also upped my efforts at trying to get surveys done. For anyone reading this and wondering how best to reach a large amount of people in a short amount of time I suggest fliers. I have put up fliers all over the campus at school and that seems to be helping. I am also going to be putting things on cars, and doing a fairly aggressive mailing campaign to doctors and other health professionals. I also am planning on speaking with the nursing staff, pharmacists and doctors with whom I work. I am hoping all of that pays off. I want to be the top intern.

And I went running for the first time in about 3 months today. I enjoyed it, but man if you don't keep your endurance up, it goes downhill fast. I used to be able to skip-rope for about 15 minutes and run 2 miles in the same morning and it didn't really faze me, but now, not so much.

OK, now to the subject I am sure we have all been waiting for, the 'Drug of the Week'.
This week's drug shall be :
Vancomycin Hydrochloride.

Vancomycin, or Vanco as it is commonly called, is the heavy hitter when it comes to preventing infection. Often, Vanco is administered post-operatively as a pre-medication against infection. Vanco does not absorb well through the digestive tract. In fact pill form Vanco is used to treat infections of the intestinal system. For Vanco to be effective at preventing infection it must be administered through IV or placed directly on the operation site.
This drug has one large molecule:
Once again the finer points of this molecule are outside the scope of this blog, but that is one complicated molecule. Recently in an Organic Chemistry course I was supposed to label and recognize certain aspects of this molecule, needless to say, it took awhile.
Vanco is also one of the only drugs on the market right now that is capable of attacking MRSA or Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus.
Normal antibiotics attack bacterium by inhibiting growth of the cell wall. MRSA is a so called 'super-bug' because it has developed a way in which it can go around the cell wall inhibiting agent of a antibiotic drugs.
In times past western medicine has been too quick to administer any form of antibiotic agent and that, combined with patients who have not taken the full dose of their medications, has caused/allowed bacterium to develop methods for combating the way that common antibiotic agents work; or have worked in the past.

This shows an animation of how Vanco is able to inhibit cell wall growth even in MRSA infections:
http://student.ccbcmd.edu/courses/bio141/lecguide/unit2/control/vanres.html
Unfortunately I was unable to get the animation to post, so the link will have to suffice. The animation shows, basically, the way in which Vanco molecules bind to sites on the cell wall and keep the bacterium cell from forming which causes cell lysis or simply put; it splits the cell.

There are, however, complications to using this medication. According to:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3230/is_1_37/ai_n9770627

'Because vancomycin-resistant staphylococci are very rare, vancomycin has long been considered the gold standard for treating MRSA infections. Unfortunately, despite its in vitro activity, when vancomycin is used as single-drug therapy to treat MRSA infections, cure rates in serious infections have been very disappointing....44% failures in treating bacteremia...40% failures in treating lower respiratory-tract infections.
In treating nonserious MRSA infections, such as wounds, skin, and urinary-tract infections (UTIs), in addition to slow cure rates and failures, vancomycin is practically and economically burdensome. Because there is no oral form, a patient for whom vancomycin is prescribed must wear an infusaport [an intravenous system placed into the chest, often used for chemotherapy treatment, a.k.a. a Broviac] around the clock. Additionally, he must visit daily an infusion center or have home infusion service. To avoid toxicity, blood levels must be monitored. Vancomycin drug acquisition, administration, and laboratory costs are approximately $100 per day.'

There is current research attempting to find better alternatives to Vanco and to create new medicines to combat resistant bacteria. This is one of the major focuses of medicinal chemists today.