Question

• What is the difference between biochemical, pharmaceutical, and diagnostic chemical reactions in healthcare?

• What is a specific example that exists for each of these chemical reaction types above and why might it be of importance to healthcare professionals?

• List a balanced chemical equation for each of these chemical reaction types and explain how it is used in your example above.

Answer 1

A biochemical reaction is the transformation of one molecule to a different molecule inside a cell. Biochemical reactions are mediated by enzymes, which are biological catalysts that can alter the rate and specificity of chemical reactions inside cells.

An example is two amino acids (Glycine and Valine) forming an amide bond to create a peptide and losing a water molecule. These amino acid chains that form this way create the vast number of proteins found in the human body.

Glycine + Valine --> glycine-valine (a peptide bond compound)+ H₂O

A pharmaceutical reaction is one when a pharmaceutical product (chemical product) is produced by chemical reactants. A pharmaceutical product is product is for human consumption.

Most classic pharmaceuticals are small molecules with a molecular weight between 200 and 1000 that interact with specific receptors in the body. An example is aspirin. It transfers an acetyl group from the aspirin molecule to a serine amino acid residue of a protein enzyme called a COX inhibitor. In reaction form that would be:

Aspirin (Acetyl salicylic acid) + COX --> salicylic acid + COX-OAc

A diagnostic chemical reaction diagnostic chemical reaction is a chemical reaction as part of a healthcare diagnostic test, ususally occurring outside of the human body in a medical instrument. A diagnostic test is a test that helps a doctor make a medical diagnosis for a patient.

An example is the test to measure the blood levels of serum albumin, the most commonly found protein in human blood serum. The dye bromocresol green binds with albumin, thus forming a colored complex. The light absorption of this complex is measured with a spectrophotometer to determine the concentration of albumin in the blood sample.

Albumin + Bromocresol green --> albumin-bromocresol green complex

All of these test are helpful for the healthcare community. The more scientists understand the chemistry of the human body in all aspects, the better they can help patients.