Pre-clinical and clinical drug development. Pharmacovigilance. Introduction to general pharmacology: routes of drug administration, principles of pharmacokinetics (absorption, distribution, biotransformation and elimination of the drug); pharmacodynamics (membrane and intracellular receptors; characteristics of drug-receptor interaction; agonists and antagonists; dose-response relationship; therapeutic index). Pharmacogenomics, inter-individual and intra-individual variability factors in drug response.
Adverse drug reactions (hypersensitivity, idiosyncrasy, allergy). Special pharmacology: adrenergic and cholinergic transmission, CNS stimulating drugs, opioids, hallucinogens, cannabinoids, sedative-hypnotic drugs, anti-psychotic drugs, anti-rejection drugs, cardioactive and antiarrhythmic drugs, anti-anemic, anti-aggregating and fibrinolytic drugs, antineoplastic drugs.