Dad, what's a pharmacologist? Gee, Linda, I'm glad you asked that.
You know, a few years ago, I didn't even know how to spell pharmacologist.
Now I are one.
Oh, come on, Dad.
What is pharmacology? Well, most drug companies are involved in research, and nearly all medical schools have a pharmacology department.
Yeah, but what is pharmacology? Well, a lot of people confuse pharmacology with pharmacy, but pharmacology is really not pharmacy.
Many pharmacologists start out as pharmacists, but go on with postgraduate studies in a medical school or a pharmacy school to get a master's degree or a doctor of philosophy in pharmacology.
Pharmacology is the study of the actions of drugs in living systems.
In basic pharmacology research, these living systems are laboratory animals.
Before the drugs are studied, they must be prepared in an appropriate form for administration.
This usually involves making a solution of the correct concentration, if this is possible.
You might say this is one aspect of pharmacology that involves a little bit of pharmacy.
After the drug is prepared, the other materials required for an experiment must be very carefully set up.
Oh, come on, Dad.
Doses are usually given on a basis of weight of drug per weight of animal.
Usually this is in terms of milligrams of drug per kilogram of animal weight.
Many different animals may be used in basic pharmacology research, including mice, guinea pigs, rats, hamsters, gerbils, dogs, cats, rabbits, and monkeys.
The usual aim for work on these animals is to be able to extrapolate the results to humans, so new therapeutic agents can be developed or to aid in understanding the actions of drugs in humans.
Sometimes only a small piece of tissue is used to study the basic mechanisms of drug action.
The tissue is removed from the animal and placed in a physiological salt solution.
Contractions can be produced by adding various substances to the bath, and these contractions are detected with a transducer, shown here.
The movements of the tissue are transmitted by electrical mains and are recorded on a pen -writing recorder.
Now if you watch very closely, you can see this strip of guinea pig ileum slowly contract after the addition of a stimulant to the bathing solution.
The movement of the tissue is recorded on a pen -writer.
By using isolated tissues such as this, we reduce the factors of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion that are involved when a drug is given to a whole animal.
This gives us a closer look at the basic mechanism of drug action.
Antagonism, or inhibition of natural body substances, is a basic mechanism by which many drugs act.
The apparatus shown here is used to detect drugs that will antagonize the actions of radicin, prostaglandins, acetylcholine, or 5 -hydroxy -triptamine on isolated tissue.
Recording the results of experiments is an important part of any experiment.
Interpreting these results and designing new experiments is also important.
We must keep up to date on scientific research.
There are many specialties within pharmacology.
Let's take a look at some of these.
One of the specialties is cardiovascular pharmacology.
Dogs are often used in these cardiovascular studies because they are convenient in size for surgical procedures and can be trained to lie quietly for non -painful experiments like we see here.
If surgery is to be performed, the animals are anesthetized.
Sophisticated electronic equipment is required in some areas of pharmacology.
Here we see some of the electronic equipment that is used to study the effects of drugs on the heart.
Another area of pharmacology is pulmonary pharmacology.
In this experiment, air is pumped into the lungs of an anesthetized guinea pig.
The effect of drugs on the resistance to air passage can be measured by this technique.
Another area of pharmacology is gastrointestinal pharmacology.
Here we see the examination of rat stomachs to determine if a drug is effective in preventing ulcers.
There are many specialized areas of pharmacology including renal pharmacology or the study of the actions of drugs on kidney function, pharmacology of the peripheral nervous system, and biochemical pharmacology.
The study of the actions of drugs on the central nervous system is an important area of pharmacology.
Here we see electrodes being implanted into the brains of mice so brain function can be monitored after the administration of drugs.
The study of drugs on the heart is conducted by the CNS pharmacology also involves the effects of drugs on behavior.
Monkeys are sometimes used in these studies because of their advanced behavioral patterns.
Pharmacology is not an exact science.
Many of the experiments have to be conducted on a large number of animals with statistical analysis of the results to aid in interpretation.
The statistical analyses are usually done these days on a computer.
Gee, Dad, is that all you do? Sit around all day and read those silly magazines?
