Mmm..Poison Cupcakes

I needed a study break so it's time for another blog entry! I've decided that I hate memorizing drugs and their actions. And pharmacology isn't until the second year. But, luckily for us (note: sarcasm), the biochemistry folks have started scattering them in among our material. And I don't like it since it makes the cupcake that is biochemistry more like a cupcake with poison sprinkles. Tasty until the cyanide* hits your system.

It's not as if you have to memorize that "streptomycin kills bacteria". No, you have to memorize that "streptomycin is an aminoglycoside antibiotic that acts by preventing binding of f-met-tRNAf to the P site of ribosomes and thus inhibits protein synthesis and is specific to prokaryotic ribosomes".

This is maybe not terribly complicated but when you start adding up the many drugs it gives me a headache. I'm starting to think that I should just buy a pharmacology textbook and start memorizing now and then maybe I'll have a chance of passing that class by the time we take it a few terms down the long basic sciences road. @.@

Since this served no purpose but for me to complain about having to memorize antibiotics that interfere with protein synthesis I'll leave you with a picture taken from the bus stop at the top of the hill.
*cyanide, by the way, kills you by acting on the electron transport chain; it binds to cytochrome c oxidase which prevents the transport of electrons to molecular oxygen, thus disrupting the mitochondria's ability to produce ATP (which is really bad for tissues like, say the heart and nervous system)