The modern era is an era of computer and technology. The technological advancements require computer skills to be utilized in Pharmacy and for appreciable outcomes. Various tasks are performed by pharmacists with the use of computers including critical tasks of patient care. The computer software use is increasing with time, and the importance of computer acquiring skills is prominent from the curricular guidelines of the pharmacy students across the globe. A variety of computer programs are available for teaching pharmacy subjects to students which not only improve learning and overall study outcomes.
PHARMACEUTICS
Pharmaceutics deals with the process of turning an old drugs or a new chemical entity into a dosage form to be used effectively and safely by patients. Pharmaceutics study requires various procedures involved in the conversion of chemical substance to a dosage form. The software like Modes Lab Dragon and HyperChem have helped to provide cross comparison of experimental and calculated values of partition coefficients of ionized form of drug substance. Also, the DDSolver software has been used to perform in vitro and in vivo drug release in the immediate release and extended release dosage forms. This software can perform multi task operations including Ratio Test, f1 and f2 factor calculation, Confidence Interval, Rescigno Indexes, and various others methods.
PHARMACOLOGY
Pharmacology is defined as the branch in science concerned with the effects of living organisms with the drugs (pharmacokinetics) and the effects of the drugs on living organisms (pharmacodynamics). The Property Calculator software help student predict likeness of Drug using “Lipinsiki Rule of 5”. It provides comprehensive knowledge of drug design. HyperChem software is helpful in providing understanding of toxicological and pharmacological profiles of drug substances at molecular level. Software like Win Nonlin can determine pharmacokinetic parameters. PK/PD computer simulations software can be used as an alternative to pre-built PK/PD complex models. CAL software demonstrates action of drugs on living tissues. In research study, the software has been used to demonstrate an effective method of teaching practical aspects of Pharmacology. Similarly, PASS (Prediction of Activity Spectra for Substances) software can predict activities of drug substances. The program elucidates the unknown therapeutic mechanisms of drug substances.
PHARMACOGNOSY
Pharmacognosy is a discipline, which involves scientific and systematic study of physical, chemical, and biological characters of crude drugs along with their method of cultivation, preparation, and collection. The automated computer software INVDOCK is used to identify potential therapeutic and toxicity protein targets of several bioactive compounds isolated from medicinal plants. The SELNERGY software is used to identify putative binding biological targets. Dry Lab G is widely used software for optimization of RP-HPLC for separating extracts as required.
PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY
The pharmaceutical industry develops, discovers, produces, and markets pharmaceutical drugs for medicinal use. The ATLAS software is available for combining two techniques such as that used in sequential determination of Aspirin and Vitamin C using laser induced phytochemical silver substrate synthesis in a moving flow cell. FCAD (Formulation Computer Aided Design) software is used to develop and test tablet formulations and silico capsule. Such software including ACD/ Auto Chrom based on QbD principles. These programs utilize artificial intelligence for rapid identification of mobile phase and stationary phase which help save effort and time. The DryLab programming tools allow rapid calculations of chromatograms and present peak movements with slight variation in pH of eluent.
HOSPITAL PHARMACY
A pharmacist plays a critical role in hospital setting. Analyzing drug interactions by pharmacists is important. Micromedex software is used for screening drug interactions in patients. Medical reference and information system providing access to database through computer-based software, which are capable of analyzing medications prescribed by physicians. Six Sigma is an effective processing program for inventory analysis.
CLINICAL PHARMACY
The pharmacists trained in Clinical pharmacy are aimed to provide patient care that optimizes the use of medications promotes health care, wellness, and disease prevention. This is done in collaboration with physicians and other health care professionals. A variety of tasks are performed underuse of computer software including prescription monitoring, medical errors, pharmacokinetics, and therapeutic drug level monitoring etc. Decision Analysis Tree Age software is used in a complex procedure of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) shunts transfer for treatment methodology for infections.
MEDICINAL CHEMISTRY
Drug discovery is major part of Medicinal Chemistry. The search for new drug molecule is complex and time consuming. The newer applications of various software have reformed the drug discovery process through their use in detecting drug target interactions and QSAR (Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships) studies, energy minimization and docking studies in drug design. These include software like APIS JAVA, PKUDDS, PBPK/PD modeling software, Perl and Phyton, CADD software libraries. Drug Guru software program is used for transformational changes in the chemical structure on the basis of rules of thumb from historical lore of drug discovery programs. The produced analogs could be evaluated for synthesis in future. The KPP software is used for computer simulation of chemical kinetic systems. It allows development of kinetic schemes for chemical moieties and numerical integration methods. The PaDEL Descriptor software is used for the purpose of calculating molecular fingerprints and descriptors.
Conclusion
The use of computer software in virtually all areas of Pharmaceutical Sciences has come out to be an effective tool for pharmaceutical research and development to improve efficiency and productivity in all areas related to drug discovery and development. At Adamas University, we inculcated the use of computer software in the regular curriculum of pharmaceutics, pharmacognosy, pharmacology, and medicinal chemistry. Our students are exposed to perform various studies by utilizing these softwares in accordance with curriculum requirements. Our professors help the students to explore and learn these software tools for their academics and research purpose. At the end of their courses, the students are well equipped with computational skills to grab the various job and research opportunities in the pharmacy domain.
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