The role of the KIDS for enhancing drug safety and risk management in Korea

Pharmacovigilance is defined as the science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects or any other drug-related problem. The Korea Institute of Drug Safety and Risk Management (KIDS) was established in April 2012. The main missions of the KIDS are to collect, analyze, evaluate, and manage adverse drug reaction (ADR) data, develop drug utilization review (DUR) criteria, distribute medication guidelines for health professionals, perform retrospective DUR, and perform causality assessment on ADRs, or signals derived from spontaneous reporting or other sources. The KIDS aims to provide evidence to enhance national health quality through a better drug safety and risk management system in Korea. The purpose of this paper is to suggest possible approaches and the KIDS's role in strengthening the pharmacovigilance system in Korea.

Morphological Study of GFAP Immunoreactive Cells on Fetuses and Neonate Telencephalon of Korean Native Goat / 대한해부학회지

GFAP (Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein) was one of the intermediate filament group and used as an astrocyte marker. The numerous studies about GFAP immunoreactive cell's distribution were investigated for fetus, neonate and aged brains. There are several reports about that GFAP immunoreactive cells were appeared at early fetus or after birth. In cases of mammalian fetus radial glia cells migrated toward pial surface at early stage and revealed GFAP immunoreactivity by the immunostain. But in cases of rodents, they migrated last gestation or after birth. This study, the GFAP immunoreactive cells' localizations and distribution in the fetuses (the 30th, 45th, 60th, 90th, 95th, 105th 120th of gestation) and neonate telencephalon of Korean native goat were investigated by immunohisto-chemistry (ABC method). The results obtained in this study were summarized as followings; 1. Multipolar astrocytes of 60 days of gestation were found cerebral cortex, in 95 days of gestation were found cerebral medulla, in 105 days of gestation were found lateral ventricle. 2. Radial glial cell presented 45 days of gestation and process of GFAP immunoreactive was to stretch out from ventricular to pia mater. And the nonpolar immunoreactive cells were transformed bipolar immunoreactive cells and they were transformed to monopolar and multipolar immunoreactive cell. 3. The number of GFAP immunoreactive cells of a field were gradually increased from 45 days of gestation till 90 days of gestation and decreased from 90 days of gestation till 105 days of gestation. But in 120 days of gestation and newborn were slightly increased. 4. Immunoreactivity of GFAP immunoreactive cells were gradually decreased from 95 days of gestation till 120 days of gestatioin. However, most pia mater areas and ventricles had high immunoreactivity and medulla part had low immunoreactivity. These results were suggested that radial glial cell of cerebral cortex and cerebral medulla were developed faster than lateral ventricle.

Inhibition of tumor necrosis factor-alpha mRNA expression by a limited series of tetrahydroisoquinolines in mouse peritoneal macrophages

Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) plays important roles in inflammatory responses. Some of tetrahydroisoquinoline (THI) compounds exhibited to inhibit iNOS expression in animal studies and RAW 264.7 cells, but the action of THI on inflammatory reaction was not fully investigated. In the present study, we examined a limited series of THIs (higenamine, YS-51 and THI-52) on the TNF-alpha mRNA expression in mouse peritoneal macrophages by Northern analysis. When thioglycollate-stimulated peritoneal macrophages were incubated with LPS (100 ng/ml), expression of TNF-alpha mRNA was evident and reached its maximum at 2.5 h, which was reduced concentration-dependently by treatment with THIs. When the TNF-alpha activity of macrophage-conditioned media was measured using a TNF-sensitive L929 fibroblast cell line, CCL 1, all THIs increased the cell viability in a concentration dependent manner. The concentrations of THIs used are not cytotoxic by itself when analysed by MTT. Furthermore, nitrite/nitrate level was significantly reduced by the presence of THIs in cells treated with LPS+ interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma). It is concluded, thus, that these results strongly indicated that THIs can suppress the TNF-alpha expression and reduce NO, which may be useful for the inflammatory disorders.