News - Anti-epileptic
drugs: past, present and future
24 April 2008
The process of developing anti-epileptic
drugs has changed a great deal over the
last fifty years. From discoveries by accident
via carefully planned drug design programmes,
the future looks set to include pharmacogenomics,
or how our genes affect how we respond to
drugs.
At Epilepsy Research UK's evening lecture
in Southampton on 10 October 2007, Professor
Munir Pirmohamed described the process of
developing anti-epileptic drugs, how it
works today and where it might go in the
future.
In 1992, Munir Pirmohamed became the second
ever Sir Desmond Pond Fellow of the Epilepsy
Research Foundation (now Epilepsy Research
UK). He is now professor of clinical pharmacology
(studying the effects of drugs in people)
at the University of Liverpool. His research
interests focus on adverse drug reactions:
how and why they happen, why they vary between
patients, and what surveillance systems
need to be in place to detect them.
