“For each of the drugs we discuss in Elsevier’s Integrated Review: Pharmacology, we highlight their mechanisms, how they interact with their targets, and how they modify their targets to ideally decrease the disease without causing side effects.” – Mark Kester, PhD
There’s been an explosion of new drugs. The second edition includes over 100 drugs that are new in the last two years. That speaks volumes to the field of pharmacology and how we’re teaching it. By teaching the mechanisms, we’re teaching how to deal with drugs that are not formally approved by the FDA yet, that are still being developed. We want our book to grow with the student, but how do you do that when there may be thousands of drugs that are developed between a student’s first year in medical school and the time they take the boards? It comes down to understanding the mechanisms of actions. Then, you can understand how to deal with the paradigm of new drugs continually being developed. That’s what we teach to our students and that’s the basis of the second edition of Elsevier’s Integrated Review: Pharmacology.
Elsevier’s Integrated Review: Pharmacology covers how drugs interact with probiotics, supplements, and vitamins, which is a major under-represented and under-discussed area of pharmacology. Drug-drug interactions are commonly discussed in pharmacology, but herbs and supplements are also drugs. Foods in excess are drugs, too. All of them can interact with the drugs that physicians prescribe and can lead to additional side effects. We cover all of it on our book.
I think of Elsevier’s Integrated Review: Pharmacology as a complete textbook. It’s integrated with other disciplines — physiology, biochemistry, immunology just to name a few — but it’s also organ-based. We highlight the mechanisms of action for the drugs we cover in the book. When you understand the mechanisms, then you can understand the side effects. Knowing the mechanisms of action is especially useful for students taking the USLME exams. For each of the drugs we discuss in Elsevier’s Integrated Review: Pharmacology, we highlight their mechanisms, how they interact with their targets, and how they modify their targets to ideally decrease the disease without causing side effects. We also address the revolutionary new concepts in pharmacology; the advent of biologics or genetically engineered drugs as well as the promise of personalized medicine and targeted drug delivery.
Bio
Mark Kester, PhD is the G. Thomas Passananti Professor of Pharmacology at Penn State Hershey College of Medicine. Before accepting this prestigious endowed professorship, he was a Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology as well as Interim Chair of Pharmacology. Dr. Kester is also director of the Penn State Center for Nano Medicine and Materials, which reports to Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute, the Penn State Huck Institute of the Life Sciences and the Penn State Materials Research Institute. Dr. Kester is a co-author of Elsevier’s Integrated Review: Pharmacology, 2nd Edition, which was recognized as a “highly commended textbook” by the British Medical Society.
Dr. Kester received his PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and completed his postdoctoral training at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
An acclaimed researcher, doctor, author, and businessman, Dr. Kester’s research interests include the design, characterization and validation of nanotechnologies for systemic and stent-based drug delivery. His laboratory has evaluated nanoliposomes, nanodendrimers and nanocolloids as effective drug delivery vehicles for pharmacological and molecular agents. Recent work focuses on nontoxic nanoscale systemic delivery systems for hydrophobic pro-apoptotic lipids as well as siRNAs that target mutated tumorigenic proteins. Dr. Kester has consulted with, or founded, several companies that have the license to his nano “Solutions”.
Related Authors: Kelly Dowhower Karpa, PhD, RPh; Kent E. Vrana, PhD
