CELLULAR AND MOLECULAR PHARMACOLOGY
Academic year and teacher
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2021/2022
- Teacher
- STEFANIA GESSI
- Credits
- 6
- Curriculum
- Biologia molecolare e cellulare
- Didactic period
- Secondo Semestre
- SSD
- BIO/14
Training objectives
- The main objective of the course is to provide students with the basic notion to evaluate and understand the cellular and molecular mechanism determinants for drug actions. Learning of the main drug classes, of their mechanisms of action, therapeutic and side effects. The students will learn about the underlying pathophysiology of many human pathologies and how drugs may improve human health. Finally, the relevance of drugs as tools to increase the knowledge about cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying physiological processes will be underlined.
The main knowledge acquired will be:
knowledge of therapeutic effects of drugs affecting SNC e peripheral system;
knowledge of side effects of drugs affecting SNC e peripheral system;
mechanisms of action of drugs
The main skills (that are the ability to apply knowledge acquired) will be:
knowledge of drugs in therapy;
cellular and molecular mechanism determinants for drug actions;
knowledge of pharmacological research. Prerequisites
- Basic notions on chemistry, biochemistry, physiology, anatomy, pathology and general pharmacology (pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics) are required.
Course programme
- The course forecasts 48 hours of teaching exerted as frontal lectures.
The biochemical and physiological processes relevant to drug action will be briefly illustrated. Effects, molecular mechanisms of action and side effects of the following class of drugs will be treated:
Drugs acting on the central nervous system (15 ore)
Ansiolitic, sedative, hypnotic drugs (3 ore)
Antipsychotic drugs (2 ore)
Antidepressant drugs (2 ore)
Agents for Parkinson’s disease (2 ore)
Agents for Alzheimer’s disease (2 ore)
Analgesic drugs (2 ore)
Anesthetic drugs (2 ore)
Drugs affecting cardiovascular and renal function (33)
Antihypertensive drugs: alpha and beta adrenergic antagonists, renin-angiotensin inhibitors, calcium-channel blockers, vasodilators, diuretics (4 ore)
Anti-anginal drugs: nitro-derivatives, beta-adrenergic antagonists, calcium-channel blockers (3 ore)
Drugs to treat congestive heart failure: cardiac glycosides, renin-angiotensin inhibitors, beta-adrenergic antagonists and diuretics (3 ore)
Drugs for the treatment of hyperlipoproteinemia: statin, fibrates (3 ore)
Drugs affecting peripheral systems
Drugs for the treatment of peptic ulcers and gastroesophageal reflux disease: H2 antagonists, proton pump inhibitors (PPI) and antiacids (3 ore)
Drugs for the treatment of diabetes: insulin and oral hypoglycemic agents (3 ore)
Drugs for the treatment of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (3 ore)
Therapy of inflammation:
Non-steroidal and steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (4 ore)
Chemotherapy:
Chemotherapy of neoplastic diseases (4 ore)
Biologic drugs (3 ore) Didactic methods
- The course is organized as follow:
frontal lectures on all the course’s topics through power point presentation. Learning assessment procedures
- The aim of the exam is to verify at which level the learning objectives previously described have been acquired.
The examination is one test (multiple choice questions) constituted of 31 questions based on all the topics tackled in the class, with the aim of evaluating how deeply the student has studied the subject and how he is able to understand the basic topics analyzed. Each question is worth 1 point if correct, whilst wrong answer or no answer 0 points. To pass this test it is required to get at least 18 points out of 31 and 31 right answers correspond to 30/30 cum laude. The time allowed for this test is 1 hour. Reference texts
- Farmacologia. Principi di base e applicazioni terapeutiche. Autori F. Rossi, V. Cuomo, C. Riccardi, Edizioni Minerva Medica.
Pharmacology – Authors: H.P. Rang, M.M. Dale, J.M. Ritter, R.J. Flower, G. Henderson – Elsevier Ed.
Power point presentation of lessons.
