PHAR 300 Lecture 16: PHAR 300 - lecture 16

• School: McGill University
• Department: Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Course: PHAR 300
• Professor: Edith Zorychta

Document Summary

Originates from the greek word teras/teratos = monster. Involves the study of birth defects which are the leading cause of infant mortality 3% of babies born in canada every year have a major malformation. Most are of unknown origin (2/3), those that are known: hereditary, cytogenetic diseases, drugs, chemicals, radiation, maternal infection, maternal metabolic factors and birth trauma. Down syndrome = trisomy 21, there is increased incidence of chromosomal abnormalities with increasing maternal age. Maternal diabetes, alcoholism, rubella infections, zika virus all increase risk of birth defects. Hg, vitamin a and thalidomide ingestion by pregnant women = teratogenic. Environmental defects are related to exposure to teratogenic compounds. Genes determine in large part how you respond to environmental exposures, there is huge variation in the susceptibility to abnormalities caused by environmental exposure. We can look at chromo aberrations, gene mutations/deletions and single nucleotide polymorphisms. Changes in these will cause ppl to be slightly different in how they respond to environmental exposures.