Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

For my AP Biology science fair, i was going to test drug solubility of different pills but my teacher thought that was too easy (and truthfully so did I). She wants me to go futher with the project in order to make it high school level. I'm thinking about incorporating drug bioavailability but I don't know how and what kind of experiment I would need to be able to test that. Any ideas?

Hi,

Here is some info on drug bioavailability and its measurement

http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec20/ch303/ch303c.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=LIwbxD ... q=&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=Y1v3K4 ... q=&f=false

http://www.ebiotrade.com/emgzf/spII200604/42-43.pdf

http://www.wiley-vch.de/books/sample/3527320512_c01.pdf

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/Guid ... 070124.pdf

I am sorry but I did not find any hint of a an experiment or approach to this that will be possible in a science fair setting. Most common approaches depend on measuring human fluids after a person ingests the drug, which wouldn”t be permitted under ISEF rules:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... _src.shtml

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ects.shtml

http://www.societyforscience.org/isef/rules/rules7.pdf

Sorry to not be more Helpful! Perhaps you can find another approach.

Look into dissolution rate testing, measuring how fast a pill dissolves.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p002.shtml


Best regards,

Barrett L. Tomlinson

I agreed with Barrett, the most common method to measure bioavailability of a drug is measuring the drug level in the blood (serum/plasma) after the administration of the medication which is not permitted in science fair.

Michael