Welcome UCSF PharmD Students

The materials you are responsible for are listed below.  I would, of course, encourage you to browse through the other topics under Drug Therapies, including the several new drug approvals in the past 5 years (several new formulations of levodopa and amantadine, as well as, more importantly, 2 new first-in-class drugs:  droxidopa and pimavanserin, for orthostatic hypotension and psychosis associated with Parkinson’s, respectively).

Physiological Basis of Parkinson’s

What is dopamine and what does it have to do with Parkinson’s disease?
Where does dopamine come from?
What happens to dopamine after it is made?
Why do the dopamine producing cells die?
Is Parkinson’s disease genetic?

Drug Therapies

Intro to levodopa
Why must patients take levodopa so frequently?
What are the major side effects of levodopa?
Intro to MAO-B inhibitors
Intro to dopamine agonists

We will also be doing an in-class exercise on optimizing levodopa dosing, using information from the Advanced Levodopa Pharmacokinetics page and LevodopaLevel.com.