Pharmacokinetics

This course introduces and summarizes the different steps of preclinical drug discovery, wrapping up with a brief description of the subsequent clinical trials and the importance of competitive intelligence in project strategy.  It provides a high-level overview for those interested in a more general understanding of the topic and [...]

This course begins with a review of routes of administration, ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, & excretion), and the use of in vivo drug concentration-time data to determine key pharmacokinetic parameters, like volume of distribution, half-life and clearance.  The course then emphasizes in vitro assays that allow rapid prediction of [...]

What does it take to advance a new drug from the laboratory bench to the patient’s bedside? Historically, drugs were discovered serendipitously and were usually isolated from natural sources. Today, drug discovery efforts take many years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. They also require the input of [...]

Understanding the efficacy, potency, pharmacokinetics, and safety of compounds is important, but compounds almost always require improvement in their properties in order to become drugs. The process of improvement is called lead optimization and requires a thorough understanding of how a molecule’s structure affects its function, whether efficacy, PK, [...]

A critical aspect of a drug involves how a drug is dosed and circulates throughout the body of a patient. These qualities are aspects of a drug’s pharmacokinetics or PK. Pharmacokinetics encompasses how a drug is absorbed and flows through a patient until it is ultimately eliminated. While pharmacokinetics [...]

Once a person understands the ideas of drug efficacy, potency, pharmacokinetics, and safety, original research articles can be readily understood. The Journal of Medicinal Chemistry of the American Chemical Society regularly publishes a series of articles called Drug Annotations. These articles summaries a drug discovery program from a pharmaceutical [...]

This pharmacology course will explore the mechanism of action of pharmaceutical drugs on a molecular level. We will delve into various drug classes and decipher how they affect systems within the human body.