SU503: Pharmacology A

Students taking the course are expected to have basic knowledge of anatomy, protein and nucleotide biochemistry, cell and molecular biology, human physiology.

The course builds on the knowledge acquired in the courses
SU501 Anatomy and SU502 Medical Physiology, and gives an academic basis
for studying pharmacology in relationship to modern technology and
health and apply this in future biomedical research.

In relation to the competence profile of the degree it is the explicit focus of the course to:

Give the competence to:

• identify own learning needs and structure own learning in different learning environments
• participate
  professionally in collaboration both within biomedicine but also
  cross-disciplinary based on group oriented projects.

Give skills to:

• combine the basic scientific skills with applied medical skills focusing on the human organism
• acquire new knowledge in an efficient and independent manner and to consciously  apply that knowledge

Give knowledge and understanding of

• theories and experimental methods in the central fields of molecular biology and biomedicine
• the mode of action of medicine on the human organs
• the scientific terminology used within the fields of molecular biology and biomedicine
• how scientific knowledge is obtained in an interaction between theory and experiment

The learning objective of the course is that the student demonstrates the ability to:

• Explain basic concepts of the interaction between drugs and receptors and the consequences for intracellular signal mechanisms.
• Explain principles of pharmacokinetics and make simple calculations by first order kinetics.
• Explain basic concepts of drug administration, absorption, distribution and elimination.
• Explain the mechanism of action of drugs acting on the autonomic nervous system
• Explain
  the mechanisms of action of common drugs acting on smooth muscle cells
  in the cardio-vascular system, intestines and bronchi 
• Explain the mechanism of action of common drugs acting on blood glucose regulation, inflammation and the immune response
• Explain the principles of antimicrobial drugs and the mechanism of action of main groups of antibiotics
• Explain the mechanism of action of main groups of anticancer drugs
• Name and explain common or typical side effects of drugs
• Explain the process of drug design and developmen

At the faculty of science, teaching is organized after the three-phase model ie. intro, training and study phase.

The introduction phase consists of lectures, in which the students will get a brief introduction to the course topics and the way to achieve competences. This will be complemented by the study guide and the textbook, which the students are expected to study independently.

During the training phase the students achieve competences in the most important topics. In the small classroom teaching, the students work with assignments that they have prepared at home. In the lab practicals, the students work independently with computer-based animations, which illustrate the effects of various pharmacological compounds on the constriction or dilatation of smooth muscle cells in an ex vivo like setting (ring preparation).

In the study phase, students are expected to work independently with the textbook and examples and exercises herein. Old exam questions, MCQ tests and online lab reports are also key elements of the study phase. Students are expected to use part of the study phase to work on tasks of the training phase and do some repetition for the written examSelf-study of the textbook

Activities during the study phase: