5 min

Part 4: A New Age of Drug Discovery Revolutionary Biology

    • Education

You just have to step into your local chemist to see how far medicine has come over the past 100 years. Life changing drugs, which were once unthinkable – like antibiotics, insulin and the contraceptive pill – are now commonplace. But there’s still so much we don’t know about the medicines we take. Consider your average pack of Paracetamol pills; we know these work to cure headaches and pains, we know they’re relatively harmless when taken in small doses, but scientists still don’t really know how they work. And if we don’t know how existing drugs work, how can we design better ones?

You just have to step into your local chemist to see how far medicine has come over the past 100 years. Life changing drugs, which were once unthinkable – like antibiotics, insulin and the contraceptive pill – are now commonplace. But there’s still so much we don’t know about the medicines we take. Consider your average pack of Paracetamol pills; we know these work to cure headaches and pains, we know they’re relatively harmless when taken in small doses, but scientists still don’t really know how they work. And if we don’t know how existing drugs work, how can we design better ones?

5 min

Top Podcasts In Education

The Mel Robbins Podcast
Mel Robbins
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Mick Unplugged
Mick Hunt
Do The Work
Do The Work
How to Be a Better Human
TED and PRX
TED Talks Daily
TED

More by Oxford University

Approaching Shakespeare
Oxford University
Theoretical Physics - From Outer Space to Plasma
Oxford University
The Secrets of Mathematics
Oxford University
Anthropology
Oxford University
Philosophy for Beginners
Oxford University
Critical Reasoning: A Romp Through the Foothills of Logic
Oxford University