海角社区

• McIntyre Medical Building, Room 1325
• 3655 Promenade Sir-William-Osler
• Montreal QC H3G 1Y6
• Telephone: 514-398-3623
• Website: mcgill.ca/pharma

Pharmacology is the science that deals with all aspects of drugs and their interactions with living organisms. Thus, it involves the physical and chemical properties of drugs, their biochemical and physiological effects, mechanisms of action, pharmacokinetics, and therapeutic and other uses. Since the word 鈥渄rug鈥� encompasses all chemical substances that produce an effect on living cells, pharmacology is evidently a very extensive subject.

Pharmacology is a multidisciplinary science. It has developed its own set of principles and methods to study the mode of the action of drugs, but it has also utilized many techniques and approaches from various disciplines including biochemistry, physiology, anatomy, and molecular biology, as well as others. Pharmacology encompasses a number of different areas such as:

• pharmacogenomics;
• molecular biology;
• bioinformatics;
• neuropharmacology;
• reproductive pharmacology;
• endocrine pharmacology;
• receptor pharmacology;
• cardiovascular pharmacology;
• toxicology;
• developmental pharmacology;
• autonomic pharmacology;
• biochemical pharmacology;
• therapeutics.

Training in pharmacology is conducted at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Because of its breadth, students may be attracted to the subject from a variety of viewpoints; this includes those completing a bachelor's degree in any number of basic science disciplines, such as biology, zoology, chemistry, physics, biochemistry, microbiology, anatomy, and physiology. At the undergraduate level, seven lecture courses are offered. A course involving research projects in pharmacology is also available to provide students with the opportunity to get first-hand experience in a pharmacology research laboratory. These courses provide students with knowledge concerning the actions of drugs on living systems and insight into approaches to basic pharmacological research.