office_hours:inflammation:start
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Understanding Inflammation (Office Hours Series)
This series is the mechanistic backbone for a huge portion of pharmacology: NSAIDs, Corticosteroids, Antihistamines, Asthma Meds, Biologics, Rheum Drugs, and more.
Quick Links
What You’ll Learn
- Acute vs chronic inflammation (what changes, and why it matters)
- Where histamine, prostaglandins, leukotrienes, cytokines fit
- How steroids differ from NSAIDs (and why biologics are “upstream”)
- How to predict therapeutic benefit + adverse effects from pathway position
If you understand the pathway, you stop memorizing drug lists.
Episodes
Keep each episode as its own page (easy to expand later).
This landing page stays clean and scalable.
Episode 1 — The Inflammation Map (Big Picture)
📄 Download Slides (PDF)
Download Slides (PDF)
Episode 2 — Arachidonic Acid Pathway (NSAIDs vs Leukotrienes)
📄 Download Slides (PDF)
Download Slides (PDF)
Episode 3 — Cytokines & JAK/STAT (Why Biologics Work)
📄 Download Slides (PDF)
Download Slides (PDF)
Episode 4 — Hypersensitivity vs Autoimmunity (Clinical Patterns)
📄 Download Slides (PDF)
Download Slides (PDF)
High-Yield Framework
| Target Level | Examples | What It Usually Does |
|---|---|---|
| Mast cells / histamine | antihistamines, omalizumab (IgE) | helps allergy symptoms; not great for deep autoimmune disease |
| Arachidonic acid (COX/LOX) | NSAIDs, aspirin, zileuton, montelukast | pain/fever/inflammation; leukotrienes = airway + allergy |
| Gene transcription | corticosteroids | broad suppression; powerful but lots of systemic adverse effects |
| Cytokines / signaling | TNF inhibitors, IL inhibitors, JAK inhibitors | “upstream” control; high impact in autoimmune disease |
Related
office_hours/inflammation/start.1771177273.txt.gz · Last modified: by andrew2393cns