Learning Targets

Topic Progress:
  • Learn definitions of frequently used terms in pharmacology
  • Learn basis concepts in pharmacodynamics (eg. agonists, antagonists)
  • Learn to interpret drug response curves (eg. Cmax, Kd, antagonism)
  • Understand common signaling pathways involved in drug response (eg. GPCR, RTK)
  • Learn basic pharmacokinetics:
    • Absorption, bioavailability, first pass effect
    • Distribution, plasma protein binding, volume of distribution
    • Metabolism, biotransformation, Phase-I & Phase-II metabolism
    • Elimination, renal and biliary
  • Understand quantitative aspects of pharmacokinetics:
    • Clearance
    • Half-life
    • Zero order and First order kinetics
    • Continuous dosing & and multiple dosing kinetics
  • Review basic toxicology:
    • Immune toxicity, genotoxicity, neurotoxicity, mitochondrial toxicity
  • Review basic concepts in pharmacogenetics & pharmacogenomics
    • Variability in medicine  (history)
    • Polymorphisms (SNPs, haplotypes)
    • Variability in pharmacokinetics & pharmacodynamics