PHR1122 How medicines work 3: Pharmacology

This unit builds upon PHR1031 “How the body works” to provide an overview of how drugs interact with their therapeutic targets to alter normal physiological processes in the body. The effects of drugs to reverse the compromised physiology associated with a number of diseases and disorders will also be described to illustrate the benefits of various medical therapies. To address these key areas, you will study the fundamentals of pharmacology with an emphasis on drug- target interactions and the mechanisms of action of medicines. You will explore the concepts of agonists and antagonists, receptors, signal transduction, enzymes, transporters, ion channels, natural products, biologicals and pharmacological drug interactions. These concepts will be studied with a view to how they impact the beneficial and detrimental effects of drugs which leads to the design of effective and safe pharmacotherapeutics for patients.