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Readability of medical physiology articles

Hey Seppi333. Wondering if I could pick your brain. I often use WP as revision and for my work as I'm sure many people do. I find many of our articles (e.g. Beta-2 adrenergic receptor, which I'm looking at now) very difficult to read and lacking key information which (I feel at least) could be included in the infobox - e.g. where is that thing, what does that thing do, what makes that thing). I don't want to reinvent the wheel discussion wise so I thought I'd ask if any of those discussions have happened before, and what do you think about some sort of approach to making these articles somewhat more readable? Looking forward to your response, --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:24, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tom (LT): Hmm. I would probably ask at WT:PHARM about this since I don't remember this being mentioned before (NB: it'd be worth mentioning that WT:PHARM discussion and linking to it at WT:MCB). A typical article on a receptor protein uses Template:Infobox gene (e.g., TAAR1 and DRD1), but a modified infobox for a receptor analogous to Template:Infobox neurotransmitter might be merited for use as a 2nd contextual infobox in articles on G protein-coupled receptors (e.g., beta-adrenoceptors). As for making the Beta-2 adrenergic receptor article more readable, the structure/mechanism section are both necessarily technical, but I suppose a signal transduction diagram in the mechanism section might help. The function section should probably be converted mostly to prose.
I'm not sure which part you were referring to specifically, but examples of how I typically cover classes of GPCRs and specific GPCRs in articles on those topics are Trace amine-associated receptor and TAAR1; if you think those are adequate, I suppose we could create a discussion about what information to cover on receptor proteins as well as how to format it in the corresponding style guideline (MOS:MCB). Otherwise, it's probably worth requesting more input from others about what should be covered in articles on GPCRs as well as how it should be sectioned/formatted. Seppi333 (Insert ) 22:32, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
A bit more information may be found under the collapsed Gene ontology section of the {{Infobox_gene}} template including the Molecular function (more specifically the molecular mechanism of action, or more simply what it does), the Cellular component (where it is located within the cell), and the Biological process (cellular mode of action, the end result of what it does). All proteins are basically are made the same way (DNA → mRNA → protein) but the details may differ (e.g., post-translational modification). The data in these infoboxes was taken from databases and much of it may be difficult for most readers to digest. Perhaps we should add some fields for human generated descriptions. Boghog (talk) 10:41, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
It doesn't seem to me that infobox gene is appropriate for neurotransmitter receptors, because so many of them consist of multiple subunit proteins. I think perhaps an appropriate infobox would contain at minimum a list of agonists, antagonists, mechanism of action, and component proteins. Looie496 (talk) 14:04, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
Specifically discussing infoboxes (which are only one small aspect of readability), I agree with Looie. We do have {{Infobox protein}}, which is significantly more appropriate than one about genes. However, I think it would be an even better idea to create {{Infobox receptor}}, with a more pharmacological (ligand-oriented) focus. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:33, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
What is misleading about these two infoboxes are the names. Both {{infobox gene}} and {{infobox protein}} contain information about the gene and the protein encoded by that gene. Ditto for the articles transcluding these templates. Every single field that is contained in {{infobox protein}} is also contained within {{infobox gene}}. It makes no sense to have separate articles or infoboxes about the gene or protein. As a practical matter, if a receptor is composed of two or more subunits encoded by different genes (e.g., Interleukin-7 receptor), it is better to use {{infobox protein}} since including more than one {{infobox gene}} template in the same article would overwhelm the article. Boghog (talk) 20:44, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
If we do create {{Infobox receptor}}, I believe it should not duplicate information already included in {{infobox gene}}. Boghog (talk) 20:57, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
The old {{GNF Protein box}} that preceded {{Infobox gene}} contained a field for the IUPHAR ID which provided link to the IUPHAR database of receptors/ion channels. I will see if I can get this working again. Boghog (talk) 06:38, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
It is my opinion that the gene infobox needs to be more readable. See for example (Sex hormone-binding globulin). Almost two vertical pages of identifiers are contained within the infobox. Yet barely any information useful to the lay reader such as - what does the globulin do? where is it produced? what species is it present in? Our templates should serve our readers (most of which will be lay readers, not technically conversant) and I think our current set could be improved in this regard.--Tom (LT) (talk) 09:35, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Also, as a reader who is somewhat conversant in biology, I have to say it is confusing to access articles about proteins and have an infobox that is primarily describing a gene. I can see that some protein articles also cover the gene, however the infobox should reflect the primary topic of the article (first sentence: "steroid-binding globulin (SSBG) is a glycoprotein ").--Tom (LT) (talk) 09:39, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
To reiterate, {{infobox gene}} is NOT primarily about genes. It is about both the protein and the gene. The first identifiers in the infobox are about crystal structures of the protein, not of the gene. If a graphic is included in the infobox, it is most commonly a protein crystal structure that is displayed at the top of the infobox (see for example the infobox in insulin and now also sex hormone-binding globulin). In addition, there are several protein specific links such as UniProt and RefSeq (protein). Even the links to external gene databases have significant information about the protein.
Likewise the articles that transcribe these templates are not solely about the protein. They also contain information about the gene (see WP:MCBMOS). Since the two topics are so interrelated, it makes no sense to split these articles in two. Hence it is appropriate to have a single infobox that contains information both about the protein and the gene and {{infobox gene}} fulfills that requirement. In cases where we have had separate gene and protein articles, these have been merged. Finally I agree that the layout could be improved, but that is a separate issue. Boghog (talk) 12:27, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Concerning the lead sentence of Gene Wiki articles, as discussed here and here, we have tried to make clear that the scope of these articles encompasses both the protein and gene encoding that protein. Furthermore these articles are not only about the human gene/protein, but also orthologs that exist in other species. The wording that was reached through consensus is perhaps a little awkward, but it is both accurate and concise:
The "that" in the above sentence is non-limiting implying that the protein (and gene) exists in other species besides human. Boghog (talk) 13:54, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

In order to enable the external IUPHAR target database links, a new wikidata property for IUPHAR Target IDs must be created. Please comment here if you have an opinion. Boghog (talk) 11:13, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I respect the consensus that's been established here - it makes sense to have to have most genes and proteins covered in the same article (although I note that you are linking me to an essay). The phrasing of the lead and structure of the articles implies the articles are primarily about (1) the protein, and (2) the human part of it. Do you think the infoboxes could be made more readable? I am hoping the answer is yes. Some thoughts as to how are - (1) more human readable fields (2) for protein articles, more prominence about the protein (3) deprecating some infobox information to as appropriate (a) an authority control or (b) an additional resources template stored in 'see also'. Thoughts or ideas from you and other editors? I think we all agree WP is a work in progress and therefore there is no harm and the potential to improve many of our articles here. Respectfully, --Tom (LT) (talk) 17:57, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I should add, I am fully supportive of inclusion and linking to Wikidata items. It is more of where and how data are appropriately displayed. For comparison, we have recently gone through a similar process at WP:ANAT and it seems WP:MED is making a transition at the moment. --Tom (LT) (talk) 17:59, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for your thoughtful replies. I am all in favor of making these templates more readable. In response to your suggestions:
  1. more human readable fields – We could create fields such as |function=, |tissue distribution=, |subcellular distribution=, |copy number=, |synthesis=, |metabolism=, |half-life=, and |post-translational modification=. Please keep in mind we now have over 10,000 distinct Gene Wiki pages. The question is how to populate these new fields. One possibility is to use the data in the Gene ontology, but would only populate some of the fields and probably would have to be reviewed by human editors and hence would involve an enormous amount of work. Of course, we could initially concentrate on the most accessed pages first. Please also note that the title of the Gene ontology section is misleading. It actually has more to do with the protein than the gene. The reason for the name is that molecular biologists and bioinformaticians tend to use gene and protein names interchangeably. (See also Avoid Gene Products)
  2. more prominence about the protein – All of the above proposed fields deal with the protein and we can place these near the beginning of the infobox. And as pointed out above, the Gene ontology section is actually more about the protein than the gene. Perhaps this section should be renamed to more accurate reflect what it contains. Finally the RNA expression pattern should probably be collapsed.
  3. moving details to an authority control – not sure that this is really needed, especially if these links are moved toward the end of the infobox. Boghog (talk) 19:20, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more with Tom (LT). Many of the protein/gene articles probably get minimal traffic outside the professional biology community, but even relatively popular pages like BRCA1 have infoboxes that are populated almost entirely with material that is likely incomprehensible to the overwhelming majority of readers. And the GO functions are included in that infobox but again likely give no information to the average reader. I'd support moving much of the information currently in the gene/protein infoboxes into a template near the bottom as is currently done with taxonomic identifiers by the Taxonbar. Perhaps more prominently shown could be some human-readable fields as Boghog suggests above. I particulary like his idea of a "function" parameter. Ajpolino (talk) 22:27, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Re: #1 in Boghog’s list - that’s more-or-less what I was thinking when I suggested creating a supplemental receptor infobox. I think other useful/relevant fields for that infobox are: |primary endogenous agonists=, |signal transduction= or |transduction mechanism=, and |constitutively active=. If it’s possible to source the relevant data from IUPHAR to wikidata, then we might be able to use their database to populate the fields for the primary endogenous agonists and signal transduction. Not sure where to source data on constitutive activity; that might need to be added manually and coded as a parameter that accepts a binary/{{YesNo}} input. Seppi333 (Insert ) 02:31, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Just to put things in perspective, only about 500 of the 11,000 proteins in the Gene Wiki act as receptors. Also it is important to realize that molecular biology is complicated, really complicated. A single protein may have multiple functions that will be difficult to capture with in a single set of parameters. In addition, many proteins have unknown function, but the gene has clear disease linkage. At one point, automatic display of disease associations based on data from an external database was enabled, but the data wasn't considered reliable enough and the display was surpressed (see this discussion). That will be a problem with other types of bot generated descriptions as well. The only way to do this right is manually and that is an enormous amount of work for 11,000 pages. Boghog (talk) 04:41, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
I imagine that a receptor infobox like this is really only useful and easy to populate for articles on well-known GPCRs, as opposed to things like receptor tyrosine kinases and ligand-gated ion channels (NB: I realize there are a number of "well-known" receptors that belong to both of these classes, but it'd be hard to populate the "function" field for many of these). Given the page traffic on notable GPCRs (most of which are these GPCRs) and the fact that the original issue pertained to a GPCR, shouldn't we just limit the scope of the problem to the underlying issue and create an {{Infobox GPCR}}? The number of human GPCRs, according to GPCR#Classification, is ~750, several hundreds of which are olfactory GPCRs. If we ignore all purely olfactory GPCRs and orphan GPCRs, then I don't think it would be too much work to manually add and at least partially expand the infobox in the corresponding articles. The number of articles involved is only a couple hundred. Seppi333 (Insert ) 02:33, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree that we should start with well characterized proteins. On the other hand, I don't think {{G protein-coupled receptors}} are necessarily any more or less understood than {{Tyrosine kinases}} or {{Ligand-gated ion channels}}. One really simple thing that could be done to improve readability is to collapse (1) Gene location (Human) (IMHO, this is just eye candy that takes up a lot of space) and (2) RNA expression pattern and uncollapse (3) Gene ontology. This works pretty well in cases where Gene ontology is concise (e.g., TAAR1) and less well where it is verbose (e.g., Beta-2 adrenergic receptor). If we could just figure out a way to restrict Gene ontology to the main or most important functions, this would go a long way to solve the problem. Boghog (talk) 05:31, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
GO Slim and Subset Guide is a possibility. Especailly relevant might be the Chembl Drug Target slim. Boghog (talk) 05:43, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
Restricting the level might also help. Boghog (talk) 05:57, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
Or maybe I am being naive. A verbose gene ontology is just a reflection of the fact that a single gene/protein can have many functions. Boghog (talk) 06:07, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

Using the Gene Ontology section in Beta-2 adrenergic receptor as an example, if we were to flag in wikidata (adrenoceptor beta 2 (Q287961)) the following subset for display in the infobox:

Key Facts
Property Description
Molecular mechanism G-protein coupled receptor activity, epinephrine binding, norepinephrine binding
Biological function regulation of smooth muscle contraction
Subcellular location membrane

We would then have a concise description of the most important functions and properties of this receptor. This would still require a lot of manual work to implement for the whole Gene Wiki, but it would be much less work than creating descriptions from scratch. Boghog (talk) 07:48, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Hmm. Yeah, that seems like it would work for most GPCRs. The set of GO terms in beta-2 adrenergic receptor's infobox definitely looks to be comprehensive. After checking about 10 other GPCR articles (including one not-so-well characterized one: orexin receptor 1), the lists of GO terms are accurate and at least moderately comprehensive descriptors for the GPCRs as well. There was one exception; given the amount of research on it, the tiny list of GO terms for TAAR1 saddens me. TAARs don't seem to get much attention. In any event, I'll look at other GPCR pages tomorrow since I only looked at a tiny fraction of them tonight.
What do others think? Seppi333 (Insert ) 09:33, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
There appears a mechanism already in place to rank wikidata (see d:HELP:Ranking). Currently all the Gene Ontology data appears to have a "normal" rank. For Gene Ontology data that we would like to highlight in the infobox, we can change the rank from "normal" to "preferred". It should then be possible to modify the infobox template code to display preferred Gene Ontology data (like the above example) in a new uncollapsed section near the top of the infobox. Perhaps we could call this section "Key Facts". For completeness, the collapsed section containing all the Ontogeny data would be retained.
It will however be rather tedious to use the GUI to change the rankings of a large number of data records. Perhaps we could get a bot to do this. Boghog (talk) 13:25, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
I’ve expanded and tinkered with several wikidata entries, so I’m already familiar with the ranking feature (although I still have no clue what purpose it serves, so perhaps I should read that link).
That said, how would we code the bot in a manner that would enable it to correctly determine what a receptor’s relevant/notable functions, processes, and cellular distributions are? Unless there’s something I’m missing (e.g., there’s already data on “important” GO terms for most GPCRs somewhere or there’s ranking data for each receptor’s GO terms), that sounds like it’d require an excessive amount of manual work (i.e., data entry if the script references a data file or coding if the relevant terms for each receptor are specified in the bot’s script) for whoever writes the bot script. I’d propose the alternative option of using a machine learning model to do this and having a group of editors manually correct any mistakes if I knew an editor with ML modeling expertise, but unfortunately I don’t. That would entail much less work overall and spread it over multiple individals though. Seppi333 (Insert ) 18:25, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
That's actually not what I am proposing. What I am proposing is to download Gene Ontogeny data, one protein family at a time, manually go through the list to select "preferred" data, and then have the bot change the rank for the selected data. I know, this is a lot of work, but how else would one do this? I don't think AI is up to the task. There will be a lot of similarities in promoted data within a family, so processing the data family wise should speed up the process considerably. Boghog (talk) 20:18, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
@Boghog I'd also be happy to help with this. --Tom (LT) (talk) 14:04, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Great! I appreciate that. It will take me a few days collect and organize the data. As soon as that is done, we can divide up the work to identify preferred data by protein family. Boghog (talk) 16:55, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Receptor infoboxes

Break inserted here to keep track of subtopics --Tom (LT) (talk) 14:04, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

I think there is something very important that is not being addressed in this discussion (some of which I find tl;dr, admittedly). A receptor infobox should not be treated as something in molecular biology, as the two of you appear to be doing. If that were the case, we could just as well stick with the existing templates. What is really needed is the pharmacology: agonists, antagonists, modulators, and their pharmacologic/medical classifications. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:57, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
We clearly have two (or more) audiences here. Where this discussion started was a request to improve the readability of the gene infobox. This would include all proteins, not just receptors. I am also in the process of restoring the IUPHAR target links (see for example 5-HT1A receptor) so that the gene infobox contains at least one receptor specific link. The Gene Ontogeny section would contain information about endogenous but not synthetic ligands. The receptor infobox as you describe it sounds more like infobox about the ligands of a receptor rather than the receptor itself. As this lists of ligands can get quite long, I am skeptical if this information is appropriate for an infobox. I have no objection to creating a receptor infobox, but if one is created, IMHO, it should not duplicate information that is already contained in the gene infobox. Where I think a receptor infobox could be especially useful is for multi-subunit receptors. Boghog (talk) 19:51, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
I disagree. If you look back to the start of this discussion thread, it began as being about making pcol pages more accessible to the general reader rather than to the scientific specialist, and there were a couple of us who clearly expressed the view that general readers do not come here to learn about sequence homologies, but to learn about drugs and drug actions. Nobody is saying to list every ligand, but if we use the beta-2 receptor as an example since it was mentioned at the top, there should certainly be something about bronchodilators. What makes receptors interesting to the general public is their relevance to medicine, more so than whether they have multiple subunits. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:11, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
No where in the first paragraph does it mention ligands or pharmacological uses. Seppi moved the discussion here, but it just as well could have been moved to WT:MCB. The specific request was to add things like "where is that thing", "what does that thing do", "what makes that thing" to the gene infobox in beta-2 adrenergic receptor. That is to make the gene infobox more accessible to the general reader. The homologene link actually provides a partial answer to "where is that thing" (i.e., what species besides humans express the protein). The discussion was essentially hijacked by insisting it was solely about pharmacology. My top priority at the moment is making the gene infobox more readable relying on information already stored in wikidata. If others want create a new template, that's fine with me. My only request is that a new receptor template supplements but not replaces the gene infobox template. Boghog (talk) 21:47, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Ah, ok I misunderstood what you meant Boghog. That doesn't seem like it would require too much time to code. I think what I've stated in my reply below should adequately address the issues mentioned above, although there is still 1 point of contention between the "Molecular mechanism" GO terms and creating a GPCR infobox for pharmacology information.

W.r.t. the scope of this discussion, the original idea I had was to cover both the pharmacology and molecular biology of a GPCR in 1 infobox. That's not ideal given what Boghog has stated about redundancy, so the GO terms should be used to cover the molecular biology in {{Infobox gene}} (caveat: see next paragraph); that's fine for that part. I also think that ranking the most importance GO terms as you've proposed would be very helpful. I agree with Tryptofish and still think that a separate infobox should be created for pharmacology data and cover information similar to IUPHAR's summaries for receptors in a GPCR family (e.g., scroll down to "Receptor", click "Show summary" for any one of these; that summary page can be somewhat messy at times since it includes experimental and radiolabeled ligands as well as binding data). They cover clinical uses of agonists and antagonists in the comments section. Taking into account what Tryptofish mentioned, a GPCR infobox should include fields for "Signal transduction", "Primary endogenous agonists", "Agonists", "Antagonists", "Inverse agonists", "Antagonist clinical use", and "Agonist clinical use"; the majority of that data should come from IUPHAR. For relevance to the general reader, the infobox should only include pharmaceuticals and other notable ligands and shouldn't list binding data like IUPHAR does.

W.r.t. the infobox for pharmacology data on GPCRs, I realize that "Signal transduction" and in some cases "Primary endogenous agonist" are covered by GO terms in the "Molecular mechanism" field of {{Infobox gene}}; however, there's two issues with using this to replace these two fields in the pharmacology infobox. The first is that the GO terms for GPCRs do not contain this data for any receptor within some GPCR families that have been characterized (e.g., compare "Principal transduction" and "endogenous agonists" in IUPHAR's entry with the any/all of the GO terms relevant to signal transduction and "[molecule] binding" in HCA1, HCA2, and HCA3; the GO terms are missing but the IUPHAR data on these is not). The second is that IUPHAR is – by a VERY wide margin – far more of an authority in this particular niche than the "experts" that assign GO terms. Case in point: they publish extremely detailed review articles on GPCR families, like this one for the HCA receptors. So, relying on GO terms for that data instead of IUPHAR seems like an incredibly bad idea. Seppi333 (Insert ) 00:56, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Please keep in mind, that the gene infobox covers all proteins, not just receptors. The world is broader than pharmacology. A big advantage of the GO terms is that is cover all proteins and provide consistency. Another advantage is that they provide a high level overview of the function of a protein that is appropriate for an infobox aimed at the general reader. Finally this data has already been loaded into wikidata and is accessible by mechanisms already in place. As I mentioned elsewhere, I am working to restore the link to the IUPHAR target database, so at the IUPHAR data will be only one click away. Longer term, we can work to capture and present data from IUPHAR, but this will be a lot more work (ligand → receptor data is already in wikidata, receptor → ligand data is not). Who is going to do this work? I also worry about how this will look. Receptors are complicated and there is a danger that we will overwhelm the infobox. Also please keep in mind that the original request was to make the data more understandable, not more complicated. Boghog (talk) 06:48, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
  • They say that biology eats software (ref, ref); infoboxes eat everything in WP. What started as a discussion about readability has completely turned to infoboxness.
fwiw I have always viewed the MCB infoboxes as "data by biology geeks, for biology geeks". There is nothing there for the general reader, and I am actually fine with that.
With regard to mentions above about including agonists and antagonists, I would be somewhat rabidly opposed to pulling that from Wikidata - anything about drugs or diseases. We had a brouhaha about those fields in Wikidata after some yahoo over there ran a bot that added a big import of data from ChEMBL into Wikidata where they populated the "drugs used to treat" field with chemicals that were hits in HTS or that had activity based on in vitro or animal experiments - all kinds of chemicals (discussed here); I also noted here that weird data was added to Wikidata such that we got "diseases associated" with "ligands" via entries in gene/protein items in Wikidata. Not good.
So please do not use Wikidata to auto-generate infoboxes where we end up presenting the public with health claims. The infobox-gene is fine now, as is it. Jytdog (talk) 02:20, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
The initial complaint was about the readability of the gene infobox. It didn't turn into a discussion about infoboxes, that's where it started. I agree with you that the information in the gene infobox is primarily for MCB geeks and there is nothing wrong with that. But with some work, we could also make the information more accessible to the general reader so that it serves both audiences. I already mentioned above the concerns about medical claims by pointing to this discussion. Simply listing agonists and antagonists is not a medical claim. Listing their therapeutic uses is a medical claim. Boghog (talk) 05:46, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
I feel like we are talking past each other, and I have this suggestion: the gene infobox is probably fine for its intended purpose, but the request for a receptor infobox that is not (quoting the OP) "very difficult to read and lacking key information" could be addressed by creating a new infobox for receptors that would be like what Seppi described just above. So, a gene infobox for the geeks, and a receptor infobox for the general lay reader. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:08, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Boghog: The OP said Wondering if I could pick your brain. I often use WP as revision and for my work as I'm sure many people do. I find many of our articles (e.g. Beta-2 adrenergic receptor, which I'm looking at now) very difficult to read and lacking key information which (I feel at least) could be included in the infobox - e.g. where is that thing, what does that thing do, what makes that thing). I don't want to reinvent the wheel discussion wise so I thought I'd ask if any of those discussions have happened before, and what do you think about some sort of approach to making these articles somewhat more readable?. That is about badly written WP:LEADs. Per WP:MCBMOS all that information should be in the body and should be nicely summarized in the lead, right? Looking to solve basic editing problems by some kind of Wikidata-driven infobox workaround, is as problematic and bad of an idea, as the WMF making the unilateral decision to create "short descriptions" for mobile and apps, using the field from wikidata, because our first sentences are so badly written and cluttered. Jytdog (talk) 20:33, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, I stand corrected. The original request was to make the article more understandable by including key facts in the infobox. I agree with you that an infobox is no substitute for a well written lead. At the same time, a well designed infobox can provide a useful, at a glance summary of the subject. In cases where the lead is deficient, an infobox can highlight those deficiencies and inspire editors to fill in the gaps. Boghog (talk) 21:19, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Tryptofish, I am fine with other infoboxes being created, as long as they do not use Wikidata to generate health claims (so no association with diseases or drugs used to treat or dietary substances that affect, or whatever) Jytdog (talk) 20:33, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:33, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Actually that quote refers to the article, not the infobox. The proposed revision to the gene infobox would contain the key fact table above and collapse the gene location and RNA expression sections. We haven't seen any mock ups of a receptor infobox yet, so it is premature to say which will be more understandable to the general lay reader. It would be equally valid to assume that a receptor infobox would be for pharmacology geeks. Boghog (talk) 21:09, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
? Right. That is what I said in my post - the OP was about the readability of articles. You wrote above in response to me, The initial complaint was about the readability of the gene infobox but that was not accurate. Hence my response to you. Dealing with problems of readability of articles by an infobox trick, is ducking the problem. Jytdog (talk) 21:13, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Did you read my response to you above? Boghog (talk) 02:52, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
I did, thanks. It remains remarkable to me that almost none of the discussion has focused on the actual problem of article readability but instead zoomed right into the proposed solution of infoboxes. Infoboxes eat everything. :) Jytdog (talk) 19:41, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Infobox GPCR

So... are there any objections to the creation of {{Infobox GPCR}} with manually-populated/user-supplied fields for |signal transduction=, |primary endogenous agonist(s)=, |agonists=, |antagonists=, |inverse agonists=, |antagonist clinical use=, and |agonist clinical use=? If not, I'll probably create it sometime within the next few days. Again, this infobox is mainly intended for these articles: Rhodopsin-like receptors. Seppi333 (Insert ) 08:30, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

@Seppi thanks for proposing this. I feel it would be better to have a more generic {{Infobox receptor}} with subfields also including:
  • "type" (e.g. G protein coupled)
  • "cellular location" (e.g. membrane, cytoplasmic, nuclear") field
  • "cellular action" (e.g. how the receptor works within the cell)
  • "organs" (which organs its expressed in, not too fussed on name)
  • "effect" (what the overall effect of action is, not too fussed on name)--Tom (LT) (talk) 09:46, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Based upon the enormous discussion/wall of text above, Boghog pointed out that fields like "cellular location/action", effect, and organs (expression pattern) are already included in {{Infobox gene}} under "Gene ontology" and "RNA expression pattern", so it'd be redundant to include those in a 2nd infobox. The only reason I'd like to limit this to GPCRs is that all of these proposed fields need to be populated manually; given that there are thousands of receptor proteins and only a couple hundred non-olfactory rhodopsin-like GPCRs, limiting the infobox to those articles requires much less work to implement relative to all articles on nuclear receptors, LGICs, GPCRs, RTKs, and the like.
I can't possibly be the only one. See estrogen receptor or Beta-2 adrenergic receptor. There are definitely no fields which say that those things do or where they are. There's just a lot of links and numbers. No words. This is a problem which needs solving. All the people who aren't biochemists - which includes students of primary, middle, high school, undergraduates, lay people, medical professionals, other biomedical professionals, patients, and other people who have for some reason stumbled upon these articles finds these infoboxes completely useless. This is not the encyclopedia we should aim to be. --Tom (LT) (talk) 11:09, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
We can roll out a receptor infobox using some sort of automated tool to make this easier, e.g. AWB. The problem that I think we should try and solve is that there's some crucial information that's missing from receptors, and that this is not readable for untrained humans. --Tom (LT) (talk) 11:09, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Revised reply (fairly passionate about this topic as you can see). Yes I agree with your proposal. Better to start somewhere. Depending how this goes we can expand the template as needed. --Tom (LT) (talk) 14:02, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
That said, I'm assuming the "effect" field you're thinking of is more relevant to the clinical effects of receptor agonists, correct? If so, something like |Agonist clinical effect= might be useful to include. Using beta-2 adrenergic receptor as an example, this infobox could be populated with input like |Agonists=Salbutamol, etc., |Agonist clinical use=Asthma, etc., |Agonist clinical effect=bronchodilatation, etc. (NB: the term "clinical effect" here refers to a "therapeutic effect" for a particular use, not its side effects). Seppi333 (Insert ) 10:14, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
@Seppi333 Definitely not. I'm talking about its physiological action. That should definitely be included as it is, after all, the evolutionary purpose for something in the body. The reader can then interpret the clinical effect themselves or via text --Tom (LT) (talk) 11:09, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Tom (LT) that the scope of the receptor infobox should be wider than GPCRs. I also agree with Tom (LT) that the emphasis should be placed on more general concepts like physiological function (what it does), signal transduction pathways (how it does it), and tissue and subcellular distribution (where it is). Concerning ligands, I think there is a clear hierarchy of importance. By far, the most important are endogenous ligands. Second would be clinically validated/approved drugs that can pass WP:MEDRS muster. The third would be widely used research tools supported by secondary sources. Finally in analogy to {{Infobox neurotransmitter}} which was eventually subsumed into {{infobox drug}}, I suggest that the proposed {{infobox receptor}} eventually be subsumed into {{infobox gene}}/protein. Boghog (talk) 17:26, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
I suggest that the proposed {{infobox receptor}} eventually be subsumed into {{infobox gene}}/protein. - that is an outstandingly good idea. Also, I agree that this infobox should be wider than GPCRs since confining it to rhodopsin-like receptors misses notable neurotransmitter receptors like the metabotropic glutamate receptors and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors; I just don't really see how we could use an infobox with the same fields as above to populate a receptor infobox for a number of receptors like alpha-4 beta-2 nicotinic receptor given that we'd need to account for variation in a ligand's affinity relative to the receptor's stoichiometry (a 2nd trivial consideration is that the infobox would need to also include a field for "Channel blockers" of the LGIC's ion channel). Anyway, it just occurred to me while writing this that |Positive allosteric modulators=/|Negative allosteric modulators= would be appropriate to include as parameters for relevant GPCRs in {{Infobox GPCR}}. Seppi333 (Insert ) 17:42, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
With apologies for my limited understanding of how infoboxes work, I have a concern about "subsumed". If, as I suspect, it simply means that all of the parameters for each infobox will become available within a single infobox (so that editors could choose which fields to fill in for a given page), that's fine with me. But I just want to make sure that it doesn't mean that the receptor parameters would be lost. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:44, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes, that is what I meant. All the parameters from the daughter infoboxes would also be available from the parent with the possible exception of overlapping parameters that might be merged and/or renamed. Boghog (talk) 21:20, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, sounds good. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:20, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Am opposed to the |Agonists=, |Antagonists=, |Inverse agonists=, |Antagonist clinical use=, and |Agonist clinical use= fields, especially the latter two. They will be filled with garbage from ChemBL and the like in Wikidata, that will then come into WP. The proposed "effect" as well as "Agonist clinical use" and "agonist clinical effect" fields are also dangerous. We saw this movie before. They would be OK if they are filled manually-only, not sourced from Wikidata. Jytdog (talk) 19:42, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Wikidata does have the ability to rank data (Deprecated/Normal/Preferred) and infoboxes can be configured to only display Normal/Preferred or only Preferred data. With a minor amount of work, {{infobox gene}} could also be configured this way so that at a minimum, if there was questionable data, it could be manually Deprecated and therefore not displayed. What I was proposing with the GO data is to manually assign Preferred data and only display Preferred data. What is being proposed (I think) with {{infobox receptor}} is to manually select data from IUPHAR target database. If {{infobox receptor}} were later subsumed into {{infobox gene}}, the manually curated data from the {{infobox receptor}} would be transfered into wikidata and then displayed in {{infobox gene}}. I do realize that this manual curation is a lot of work, but if it were done one receptor family at a time, because of similarities between family members, the process could be speeded up considerably. Boghog (talk) 21:47, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
I hear all that and that is all fine to me, as far as it goes. For the first step of that (IUPHAR >> infobox receptor), the hardest thing consensus-wise from mu view would be agreeing on what fields need MEDRS refs. Say that gets done and the data gets imported, for step 2 (infobox receptor >> >>wikidata >> infobox gene) the question of how to prevent somebody else from running bots in Wikidata that screw it up will come into play. There was an interesting notion raised in the Wikidata RfC about drawing infoboxes from a "locked" clone of Wikidata, rather than from the wild-west live version.... Jytdog (talk) 23:07, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Agree that the implementation here is key. In general I think it's important to include as above endogenous ligands at the very least. We have to be careful about clinical agonists/antagonists. It should for starters only include clinical classes, which is useful to know, and not specific drugs, which will produce a long list and is not. It should have some clearly defined criteria about whether we are going to include a very lengthy list of drugs that have some partial or crossover activation or not. --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:38, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

{{Infobox GPCR}} examples

Beta-2 adrenergic receptor
Transduction mechanismsPrimary: Gs
Secondary: Gi/o
Primary endogenous agonistsepinephrine, norepinephrine
Agonistsisoprenaline, salbutamol, salmeterol, others
Antagonistscarvedilol, propranolol, labetalol, others
Inverse agonistsN/A
Positive allosteric modulatorsZn2+ (low concentrations)
Negative allosteric modulatorsZn2+ (high concentrations)
External resources
IUPHAR/BPS29
DrugBankP07550
HMDBHMDBP01634
Trace amine-associated receptor 1
Transduction mechanismsGs, Gq, GIRKs, β-arrestin 2
Primary endogenous agoniststyramine, β-phenylethylamine, octopamine, dopamine
AgonistsEndogenous: trace amines
Exogenous: RO5166017, amphetamine, methamphetamine, others
Neutral antagonistsNone characterized
Inverse agonistsEPPTB
Positive allosteric modulatorsN/A
Negative allosteric modulatorsN/A
External resources
IUPHAR/BPS364
DrugBankQ96RJ0
HMDBHMDBP10805

Parameters are:

  • |name= (infobox name defaults to {{PAGENAME}} if excluded)
  • |signal transduction=
  • |primary endogenous agonist= OR |primary endogenous agonists= (produces single vs plural output)
  • |agonists=
  • |antagonists=[note 1]
  • |inverse agonists=
  • |PAMs=
  • |NAMs=
  • |IUPHAR Target ID=
  • |DrugBank Polypeptides ID=
  • |HMDB Protein ID=
Notes
  1. ^ NOTE: this field is listed as "Antagonists" or "Neutral antagonists" depending upon the value of the inverse agonists parameter: it's listed as "Neutral antagonists" whenever that parameter IS NOT defined as: |inverse agonists= OR |inverse agonists=N/A, OR |inverse agonists= is missing in the template call.
    Compare how the "Antagonists" field is listed in the two {{Infobox GPCR}} examples for beta-2 adrenoceptors and TAAR1 (see right).


It needs some formatting tweaks to match the width of {{Infobox gene}} (that's slightly wider) and make it look pretty, but you get the idea of how it will look/work. Also, I had no idea GPCRs could couple to both Gs and Gi/o. Seems rather counteractive. Seppi333 (Insert ) 10:07, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

In general, I like it! About your question about G protein coupling, my impression is that it would be like Gs in one kind of cell and Gi in another kind, or maybe that some other modulator would switch it from one to the other (although I could be incorrect), but that it wouldn't be both simultaneously in the same cell. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:39, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
I think you will need to get some kind of buy-in that IUPHAR complies with MEDRS with respect to at least the "agonist clinical use" and "antagonist clinical use" fields.
To that point, I don't understand why the "antagonist clinical use" field is N/A, and the "agonist clinical use" field is incorrect with regard to the first agonist that is listed. Jytdog (talk) 17:57, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Those fields pertain to selective agonists/antagonists; the first agonist is not selective. IUPHAR covers FDA-indicated uses, so the MEDRS issue isn’t really relevant if one uses IUPHAR to fill these parameters. The input for clinical uses comes from [1], specifically: Short (salbutamol, terbutaline) and long (formoterol, salmeterol) acting β2-adrenoceptor-selective agonists are powerful bronchodilators used to treat respiratory disorders. Many first generation β-adrenoceptor antagonists (propranolol) block both β1- and β2-adrenoceptors and there are no β2-adrenoceptor-selective antagonists used therapeutically. Seppi333 (Insert ) 19:20, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be better to just prepend “selective” to those fields. Seppi333 (Insert ) 19:48, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
I don't know where all the places are, that IUPHAR gets content about "clinical use". Before rolling this out please get consensus that IUPHAR is reliable per MEDRS for that content. Jytdog (talk) 20:03, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Meh. I’d rather just cut the parameters/fields for now and broach that issue later. Seppi333 (Insert ) 20:11, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
@Jytdog: Special:diff/850351483/850623933. Seppi333 (Insert ) 01:10, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I have a better idea than listing clinical uses, but I want some feedback first. How do others feel about an "agonist drug class"/"antagonist drug class" set of parameters? That's more pharmacology-related than a pair of clinical uses parameters. Of course, not every receptor would have an assignable drug class for selective/non-selective agonists/antagonists though; so, these fields would be irrelevant for a number of receptors (that was true for the former "clinical uses" parameters too though). Seppi333 (Insert ) 01:16, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Nevermind, if "others" is listed in the agonists/antagonists parameter, then that link would already go to the drug class, as listed in the beta-2 adrenergic receptor's infobox above. Seppi333 (Insert ) 02:41, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I've added external links for |DrugBank Polypeptides ID= and |HMDB Protein ID= and included them in the example infoboxes above since I've found these databases to be useful in the past. {{Infobox drug}} includes a drugbank link, so I figured {{Infobox GPCR}} should include a link for the drug target. I also added the "HMDB Protein ID" link since HMDB has a greater focus on biomolecules than DrugBank. Another minor change I made in my recent edit to this template was to change whether the antagonists field was listed as "Antagonists" or "Neutral antagonists", depending upon the input for |inverse agonists= (see the explanation above in the Notes area under #Parameters). Seppi333 (Insert ) 02:17, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

@Boghog: How do you feel about these example infoboxes and the way I've encoded the fields to display[note 1] based upon the parameter inputs? Seppi333 (Insert ) 02:22, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Code for parameter-dependent field/LHS output

References

  1. ^ Below, the second "#if:" parser function is used to display a singular output if the |primary endogenous agonist= parameter is used and a plural output if |primary endogenous agonists= is used:
    | label2 = {{#if:{{{primary endogenous agonist|}}}{{{primary endogenous agonists|}}} |{{#if:{{{primary endogenous agonist|}}}|Primary [[endogenous agonist]]|Primary [[endogenous agonist]]s}}}}
    | data2 = {{{primary endogenous agonist|}}}{{{primary endogenous agonists|}}}


    Below, the "#switch:" parser function uses the input for the |inverse agonists= parameter to determine whether to display "Antagonists" or "Neutral antagonists" in the left-hand side field for the |antagonists= parameter (i.e., if |inverse agonists= is missing, has a blank input, or has "N/A" input → "Antagonists" is listed; otherwise, "Neutral antagonists" is listed):
    | label5 = {{#switch: {{{inverse agonists|}}} | | N/A = [[Receptor antagonist|Antagonists]] | #default = [[Neutral antagonist]]s }}
    | data5 = {{{antagonists|}}}
  • Something that occurs to me is that, so long as we are going to have at least some sort of ligands-related fields, it might make sense to have a cell surface receptor infobox that is not limited to GPCRs. Given the concept of making it pharmacologically-related, ligand-gated ion channels and tyrosine kinase receptors, and possibly olfactory receptors (and steroid receptors if we don't restrict it to the cell surface) could be grouped here too. I really think that it is better for our readers to make it pharmacologically relevant, as opposed to conceiving of it only in molecular biological terms. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:49, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
    @Tryptofish: As long as we keep the list of parameters/fields limited strictly to receptor pharmacology with the exclusion of clinical and MCB-related information (w/ exception for "Primary endogenous agonist" and "signal transduction"), the fields in this template also apply to and would be easy to populate for LGICs, RTKs, nuclear receptors, and all GPCRs (not just the rhodopsin-like receptors). If there's a consensus on expanding its use to all of these articles, the only change to {{Infobox GPCR}} that would be required is renaming/moving this template appropriately. Keep in mind that this will GREATLY increase the amount of work required to populate this template in all relevant articles. Seppi333 (Insert ) 19:20, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
    I think there is broad consensus that the scope of this infobox should be expanded to all receptors and I disagree that it will be any more work to populate a single unified infobox as opposed to several infoboxes with narrower scope. Boghog (talk) 19:33, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
    Yes, I think all receptors is the way to go, and as for workload, that comes down simply to using the infobox on more pages. But, in terms of the (now distant!) origin of this discussion, a new all-receptors infobox would be very helpful indeed to our readers.--Tryptofish (talk) 19:41, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
{{Infobox GPCR}} is now {{Infobox receptor}}. Seppi333 (Insert ) 20:27, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

So... does anyone have any further suggestions for this infobox, or should we start implementing it as is? Seppi333 (Insert ) 22:45, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

K, since no one objects, I'm just going to move the two examples infoboxes into TAAR1 and Beta-2 adrenergic receptor since they're both ready for use as is. Update:  Done Seppi333 (Insert ) 11:46, 7 August 2018 (UTC); updated 11:51, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
That reminds me, Template:Infobox receptor is going to need, at minimum, indefinite semi-protection if it's going to be used in a large number of articles. Seppi333 (Insert ) 11:53, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Alcohol (drug)

You are invited to comment at Alcohol (drug)#This article is a POVFORK and should be deleted. Kendall-K1 (talk) 01:17, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

That is, of course, Talk:Alcohol (drug)#This article is a POVFORK and should be deleted. Klbrain (talk) 16:55, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Carbon Monoxide

The carbon monoxide-releasing molecules page has recently been expanded. This focuses on CORMs, CO, heme oxygenase as part of the therapeutic gases niche. Feedback is welcome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ketoacids (talkcontribs) 14:07, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

The stub at Rating (pharmaceutical industry) appears to actually treat rater training – that is, training designed to lead to higher inter-rater reliability. I'm not sure whether the page should be moved, merged to another article, deleted entirely, or simply cleaned up. Any help from members of this Wikiproject would be appreciated.

(It seems that the page moved twice in the past, from Rater training to Rater, and then to Rating (pharmaceutical industry). Both of the earlier titles currently redirect to this one.) Cnilep (talk) 07:55, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the page is problematic. My gut reaction is that there must be a page on a related topic into which it should be merged, but I'm uncertain what that target might be. Perhaps clinical trial or clinical research. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:49, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
I expanded the article and added sources. I think there are enough independent secondary sources to justify an independent article. However I think the article should be moved to Rating (medical treatment) or something similar. Boghog (talk) 09:46, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for doing that. My suggestion would be a rename to Rating (clinical trials). It's not really about medical treatment, in the sense of rating what a physician did for a patient, and it's clearly not limited to pharmaceutical therapeutics. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:31, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Cosmos magazine: diclofenac associated with 50% hike in heart risk compared to non-users.

So, that's a popular biology comment on:
Schmidt, Morten; Sørensen, Henrik Toft; Pedersen, Lars (4 September 2018). "Diclofenac use and cardiovascular risks: series of nationwide cohort studies". BMJ. 362: k3426. doi:10.1136/bmj.k3426. ISSN 0959-8138.
Reading the paper, it doesn't identify a new problem, and it's incredibly frustrating that the authors report this relative risk, but never bother to calculate the absolute risk nor the 'number needed to harm', either of which would have been very helpful for interpreting the data. Using the relative risk does help grab the headlines, but doesn't help decision-making. You can get a sense of how misleading this is by looking at the 'Event rate' section of that paper, where we read:

Within 30 days, major adverse cardiovascular events occurred among 1465 (0.10%) diclofenac initiators, 2912 (0.07%) ibuprofen initiators, ...

So, 0.07% to 0.10% is about a 40% relative risk increase, but only a 0.03% absolute risk. Klbrain (talk) 15:37, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Prototype drug

Just to let you know that I created a stub prototype drug and linked it from several appropriate articles, as I felt that we don't have even a definition of this pretty basic topic. I confess knowing very little about pharmacology so I'm leaving it to the wikiproject to decide whether a standalone article is warranted or it should be merged into drug class. However, I feel that it could potentially grow into a list of prototype drugs, should anyone venture to compile one. (Although not a RS, it's a common enough thing in medical classes such as [2]). No such user (talk) 14:55, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Cefiderocol

A new experimental drug, Cefiderocol, has hit the mainstream news. I've created a stub for it, complete with drugbox template, but I can't work out to make it auto-fill from the data already there in Wikidata. -- The Anome (talk) 17:06, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

"Hybrid Drug" entry needed?

I have not been able to find an entry or subsection here on Hybrid Drug or Hybrid Molecule, a novel compound created in the simplest case by linking two drugs. I think there is substantial overlap with Polypharmacology but that may be only one aspect. I did find some other analogous topics, e.g., Combination Drug. I hope someone with some knowledge of medicinal chemistry or pharmacology can clarify this suggestion. BillR5 (talk) 14:44, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I've no access to any of these. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 14:06, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
I think that there's probably enough for a page on hybrid drugs. There is a quite a long history of attempt to find these in the cardiovascular field,[1] although without much success. Having a book dedicated to their design (the Design of Hybrid Molecules for Drug Development listed about) is also supportive of notability. The topic is quite distinct from Combination drug and polypharmacology. Klbrain (talk) 18:07, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Christiaans, J.A.M.; Timmerman, H. (January 1996). "Cardiovascular hybrid drugs: combination of more than one pharmacological property in one single molecule". European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. 4 (1): 1–22. doi:10.1016/0928-0987(95)00029-1.

Verifiability of our ATC lists

There is concern that our ATC lists lack verifiability because they only have a primary source (the WHO ATC lists on https://www.whocc.no/) – see this diff and User talk:Widefox. (The same seems to apply to the ICD-10 lists and others.) Rather than starting a discussion about the relevant policies I'd prefer adding a secondary source; only I can't find one. Any ideas? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 18:42, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Update: The discussion is now at Talk:ATC code V10. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 19:20, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

In German, the term "Cholagogum" is unspecific and can refer to choleretics as well as cholekinetics, and has been more or less dropped from usage. Is this true in English too? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 15:39, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Chlorpropamide

Sorry, but I do not know where else to ask: Does anyone still produce Chlorpropamide?

It is needed for a Nephrogenic diabetes insipidus case, for which no other effective medicine is known.

Any producer/seller name, anywhere in the world, would be immensely appreciated. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.177.96.36 (talk) 09:18, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Mylan stopped producing it last year, does anyone know of any other producer, anywhere in the world? 129.177.96.36 (talk) 09:35, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

A 2019 review[1] recommends diuretics (presumably thiazides) and NSAIDs, based on Bockenhauer et al. (2015).[2] That counterintuitive use of thiazides has been around for a long time, so its interesting to see that there isn't anything better. Klbrain (talk) 19:22, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, User:Klbrain, for the articles. As for Central diabetes insipidus (=lack of vasopressin), it is no longer a problem, as they can now be treated with "artificial vasopressin" (Minirin, Desmopressin).
For Nephrogenic diabetes insipidus adding more vasopressin (or vasopressin like) medicine is zero help: it is not the lack of vasopressin that is the problem, but that the kidneys cannot absorb it.
In this case, Chlorpropamide was used for decades, with 100% success (= "normal" water intake; no dietary modifications needed). After Mylan stopped producing it, Hydrochlorothiazide was tried, with some, (but nearly not enough), effect. Modamide (ie Amiloride), was then added, but the two together have still only 50-75% effect. (Practically, this means not sleeping, ever, for more than 4 hours consecutively.)
The causes for this case of Nephrogenic diabetes insipidus-case is idiopathic (no lithium treatment, and probably not congenital: it appeared suddenly in the early 20s)
It seems extremely brutal that the world goes "backward" this way, basically only because Nephrogenic diabetes insipidus is such a rare condition, that no pharmacological company find it economic to care one bit for them (That is at least my take on it, at the moment), 129.177.96.37 (talk) 16:10, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Levy, Miles; Prentice, Malcolm; Wass, John (28 February 2019). "Diabetes insipidus". BMJ: l321. doi:10.1136/bmj.l321.
  2. ^ Bockenhauer, Detlef; Bichet, Daniel G. (16 June 2015). "Pathophysiology, diagnosis and management of nephrogenic diabetes insipidus". Nature Reviews Nephrology. 11 (10): 576–588. doi:10.1038/nrneph.2015.89.

My answer could be wrong and need your help. Thank you! --Reciprocater (talk) 15:27, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Redirections required for Antagonise, antagonist and kinds of stuffs like that

I would like to do but I really need to go to bed. Thank you. --Reciprocater (talk) 20:57, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Standardize nucleosides

I modified the lede of adenosine. Someone biochemical should look it over. Perhaps adenosine is used as a drug, but the article gives the mistaken impression that its pharma application is greater than its biochemical role. Which strikes me as laughable and misleading. Perhaps the article should be split into the (niche?) medicinal aspects and the gigantic role in biochemistry. I am unfamiliar with the med chem. One more thing: if we could converge on the lede for adenosine, we could "replicate" that format for the related nucleoside. And then the nucleotides, etc.

There is the opportunity for some deft wordsmitthing should anyone want to try. For example, the article says things like adenine is attached to ribose. Chemists and biochemists talk like that but we know not to take these words literally because adenosine does not contain adenine, but the adenyl radical. Ditto for ribose. --Smokefoot (talk) 13:29, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

A RfC on how we are allowed to summarize medication prices. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:23, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Tool to organise statements from researches and find paths of influence between compounds

We are a team of enthusiasts, very passionate about science! We develop this beautiful instrument for organising researches and making them inter-connected. Similar to text wikipedia. But our is solely about medical statements and the logical relations, proven by researches. Please check https://biomindmap.com/ and the Introduction with the short video.

I would love to see new users — the community of people who want to digitalise the science, make it more available to students and scientists, and also help ordinary doctors to have best knowledge from the researches.

Maybe you could help me somehow to find the audience.

I would like to connect with researchers, doctors, biohackers, health consumers, students world wide.

As for quick demo, check this autogenerated path, where each segment is separately proven by researches. https://biomindmap.com/links/path/4566,4568,504,4332,5750

Let's discuss? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alex inside (talkcontribs) 03:25, 1 May 2020 (UTC)