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Asked by mb to Claire, Liad, Ruth, Ryan, Mako on 14 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by cw.
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Liad Baruchin answered on 14 Jun 2015:
Usually the process is: finding either by luck or by a directed investigation a compound that interacts with our bodies in certain ways (usually curing certain symptoms). Then, if it’s a natural substance, chemists will try to make this substance in the lab, or find different similar substances that act the same. Then the safety of this substances is tested. And after it’s being tried and tested beyond doubt it will be mass produced and recommended to people it might help.
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Ruth Elderfield answered on 17 Jun 2015:
It depends, sometimes if we know what causes a specific disease and we can make a model of the bit that needs to be changed in a cell line, then we can test lots of different drugs on it, new random ones or old ones that are used for something else, but might work for this too (its called screening and re-profiling).
Other times, if we know lots about the bit of the protein or receptor that causes the disease, we can specifically design a drug that can block or replace the problem signal.
Then as Liad said, lots of tests to make sure they are safe to go into humans need to be done, these take years and years.
Then a drug company will manufacture the drug, this can be a complicated process and it may take a long time to manufacture the drug on a large scale, sometimes it is a chemical process, sometimes they are manufactured using bacteria, fungi or even grown in plants!
When they made some of the drugs to treat Ebola, they ran out because they took so long to make.
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