The subject pharmacology researches the effect of drugs, deals with the development of new drugs and their application and effects on the human organism, which are previously tested in animal experiments and in approved cases also on human test persons.
What is the pharmacology?
The word composition goes back to the Greek language "pharmakos" = medicine, medicine and "logos" = teaching. In the majority of cases, these are foreign chemical substances, but the body's own pharmaceuticals can also be used.
Once the test runs have been completed, pharmacologists deal with the therapeutic benefits and possible side effects as well as preventive care, medical treatment and advice in the field of therapeutic, substance-based and diagnostic measures. Pharmacology is divided into three sub-areas: pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and pharmacogenetics. In specialist clinics and institutes, doctors have the opportunity to receive further training to become a specialist in pharmacology.
Focus
Pharmacokinetics deals with the influence of the organism on the administered substance. Pharmacodynamics researches the opposite direction, the influence of the administered substance on the organism. Pharmacogenetics tries to find answers to how the different genetic makeup of patients affects the way drugs work. Pharmacology studies the interactions between organisms and exogenous substances.
The body's own substances can also be used as pharmaceuticals if their concentration exceeds the normal physiological level. Medicines can now treat around 30,000 known diseases. Therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines are available to treat these diseases. When researching and producing mechanisms of action, doctors, pharmacists, biologists and chemists use a large number of different methods. The scientific disciplines of biotechnology, genetics, molecular biology and behavioral pharmacology are also assigned to this department.
Pharmacodynamics describes the effects of the administered drug substance on the human body. This process is also called the pharmacological effect. The profiles of drug action can be toxic, therapeutic or fatal. The toxicity stands for undesirable side effects on the organism, which can lead to complaints, illnesses or even death. A drug has a therapeutic effect when it successfully cures a disease or at least improves a disease state.
Even an usually non-toxic drug can be fatal depending on the dose and use. If a heart patient receives too high a dose of digitalis, an exit is possible. The administration of insulin can be fatal for non-diabetic patients. The mechanisms of action are always dependent on the substances, they regularly involve receptors and effectors. The pharmaceuticals (effectors) interact with certain receptors in the organism and thereby cause pharmacological effects and certain changes. The mechanism of action depends on the way in which the drugs are taken.
The drug must reach the diseased tissue or organ in the appropriate dose. Medicines can be administered intravenously, orally, or rectally. Another factor that affects pharmacodynamics is the distribution of the drug in the organism. It depends on the organ size, solubility and blood supply. At the end of this process, the drug is metabolized. The toxic content of the substance often increases. The effects of pharmaceuticals on the human body are of limited duration. This depends on the dose, time of intake, age and medical history. Pharmaceuticals are eliminated and excreted depending on how quickly they are metabolized.
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The fundamentals of pharmacology are specialist knowledge in toxicological, pharmacological, experimental and clinical development and application. Pharmacologists recognize undesirable side effects of the corresponding drugs and know how to correctly apply the reporting system and drug law. They are trained in risk management and are able to communicate the use of harmful substances and active substances accordingly. They advise and support doctors in the field of patient care and treatment and convey the diagnostic and therapeutic benefits of the pharmaceuticals used in clinical toxicology.
Further areas of expertise are biometrics, biomathematics, application research and drug epidemiology. Expertise in pharmaco and toxicinetics, toxicity dynamics of relevant pollutants and active substances as well as the basics of chemical, biochemical, microbiological, immunological, physical, physiological and molecular biological detection and working methods complete the profile of the pharmacologist. You need to know the legal requirements for development, approval procedures and handling of pharmaceuticals. They know how to plan and carry out experiments and how to evaluate existing studies.
They are based on the ethical principles for implementation on animals and humans. Doctors analyze and evaluate toxicological effects on the human organism, including medicinal poisons and the appropriate antidotes. The physicians are familiar with the theoretical principles of experimental research with regard to desired effects or undesirable side effects of foreign substances and drugs. The field of pharmacology also includes biological standardization and test procedures, as well as regular measurement methods and examination procedures. The sub-area of toxicology deals with chemical-analytical methods of molecular, cell and electrophysiological processes.
It creates diseases in the experimental area and then researches their behavior under the influence of drug substances and foreign substances. This experimental process is then assessed and recorded. This is done using chemical, biochemical, immunological, microbiological, physical, molecular biological and physiological methods. Pharmacologists use in vitro methods to investigate the effects of medicinal substances and foreign substances on isolated cell cultures, organs and subcellular reaction systems. They are familiar with the field of behavioral pharmacological examination procedures and the basics of histological and morphological processes.
Pharmacology uses common analysis and isolation methods to quantify and identify drugs and foreign substances and their metabolites in environmental media and body fluids. Pharmacologists take part in experimental pharmacological-toxicological studies that focus on experiments in the field of molecular biological, integrative-physiological and biochemical methods and drug evaluations. They evaluate test and analysis data and deal with the theoretical basics of biostatistics, bioinformatics and biometrics.
