The course extends for 10 weeks full time during the third year for science students in a Bachelors or MasterŽs program in Biomedical Chemistry.
The number of students is about 30 and all practicals and tutorials/supervisions are done in groups of about 6 students at a time.
Hours of teaching (each hour is 45 min):
- Lectures: 100
- Practicals: 52
- Tutorials/supervisions: 12
- Seminars: 14
Contents:
General pharmacology:
Lectures:
Laws and ethics of animal experitation, biology, handling and housing of experimental
animals, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics.
Practicals:
- The mixed function oxidase (MFO) system (induction of MFO activity by PCB in the
rat).
- Ames test (induced liver microsomal fraction from previous practical used).
- The laboratory mouse (anaesthesia, administration and blood sampling techniques).
- The laboratory rat (anaesthesia, insertion of catheter in jugular vein, administration and
sampling from this, apparent volume of distribution).
- Drug analysis (gas chromatographic analysis of mexiletine in rat blood sample from
previous practical, HPLC and immunological analysis of theophylline in rat blood sample from
previous practical).
- Pharmacokinetics (computer simulation).
Drugs acting on the nervous system:
Lectures:
Cholinergic drugs, adrenergic drugs, local anaesthetics, general anaesthetics, sedative-
hypnotic drugs, antiepileptic drugs, anti-Parkinsonian drugs, neuroleptics, antidepressants, lithium,
analgesics, drugs of abuse.
Drugs acting on the circulatory system:
Lectures:
Cardiac glycosides, anti-dysrhythmic drugs, anti-anginal drugs, diuretics, anti-hypertensive
drugs, anti-coagulants, thrombolytic drugs.
Practical:
Cardiolab (computer simulation).
Drugs and endocrine systems/inflammation/immunology:
Lectures:
Gastro-intestinal drugs, anti-diabetic drugs, thyroid and anti-thyroid drugs, vasopressin and
analogues, gonadal steroids and analogues, corticosteroids and analogues, immunosuppressants,
anti-histamines, drugs against asthma, NSAIDs.
Chemotherapy and antibiotics:
Lectures:
Drugs against cancer, anti-bacterial drugs, anti-viral drugs, anti-fungal drugs.
Practical:
Ames test (see above under general pharmacology, some drugs used against cancer are
usually included to illustrate their mutagenic effects).
Tutorials/supervisions:
At the beginning of the course the students get a hand-out with about 140 questions which
they should work through during the course. These questions as well as other questions which
have come up from lectures, practicals or reading are discussed in the tutorials/supervisions.
Seminars:
At the beginning of the course each student is asked to search databases for a recent
original article, relevant to pharmacology, that interests him/her. The student has to read the
article and then present it to the other students in a seminar.
Field trip: The course also includes a field trips to visit drug companies or a local congress in pharmacology/pharmaceutics.
Books used:
- Rang HP, Dale MM and Ritter JM: Pharmacology. 4th edition, 1999. Churchill-
Livingstone.
- Rowland M and Tozer TN: Clinical pharmacokinetics. 3rd edition, 1995. Lea &
Febiger.
- Brink K-J and Waller M: Fūrsūksdjurskunskap. 1996. Studentlitteratur. (A textbook in
Swedish about experimental animals and animal experimentation).
The pharmacology course is followed directly by a course in Medicinal Chemistry (5 weeks
full time) which includes the following topics:
Physicochemical principles of drug action: Chemical bonding and biological activity, solubility
and partitioning.
Drug structure and function: Stereochemistry, geometrical isomerism, conformational
effects, electronic effects, linear free energy relationships, Hammet correlations and QSAR and
Hansch analyses.
Ligand (drug) - receptor thermodynamics: Physical/thermodynamic basis for drug receptor
interactions.
Drug design: Conformational analysis of ligands, receptors and their interactions,
crystallography, NMR and modelling of ligands, receptors and complexes.
Mass screening, single variable analysis.
Rational drug design strategies - receptor based design, mechanism based design and
analogue design, pharmacophore development and multivariate QSAR.
Combinatorial chemistry and drug development.
Commercial drug development strategies; Lead development, clinical perspectives and drug
delivery.
Patents and drug discovery.
During a previous courses in Cell Biology and Anatomy & Physiology the students have also done practicals on dose-response relationships and receptor-binding studies. Some aspects of drug formulation are also covered in a later course in Industrial Pharmacy.