Introduction to Basics of Pharmacology and Toxicology

Dr. Mageshwaran Lakshmanan has completed his M.B.,B.S degree from Tuticorin Government Medical College (Affiliated to The Tamilnadu Dr. MGR Medical University) and M.D. Pharmacology from JIPMER, Puducherry, India. He is currently working as Senior Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at Thanjavur Medical College, Tamil Nadu, India and has 8 years of teaching experience. He is involved in research activities related to preclinical toxicity studies, drug interactions, and therapeutic drug monitoring. He is a member of the Pharmacovigilance Unit, the Institutional Ethical Committee and the Medical Education Unit of Thanjavur Medical College. In addition to his Departmental activities, he is also the Academic Officer In-Charge of Thanjavur Medical College. He manages undergraduate, postgraduate medical, and paramedical student admission and examinations, coordinates IEC, and acts as nodal officer of scholarship programs and ECFMG. He is well experienced in using various statistical tools and orients the postgraduates of all departments with the research methodology and bio-statistical concepts. He has many publications in various national and international journals. Dr. Deepak Gopal Shewade, is a retired Senior Professor of Pharmacology from JIPMER, Puducherry. He had joined as Assistant Professor in the same Institute in 1986. Earlier, he worked at BITS, Pilani for 7 years as faculty and completed his Ph. D. He did M. Pharm. (Pharmacology) from Nagpur University. His areas of interest are pharmacogenomics, rational drug therapy, analgesics, and GIT pharmacology. He has completed an Indo-French project under ICMR-INSERM on warfarin dose prediction based on genetic and environmental factors. He has more than 100 publications. He has guided 10 M.D. and 8 Ph. D. students. He has visited Thailand, Uganda, and France for academic and research purposes. In 2004, he was deputed to Uganda by the Ministry of External Affairs to start B. Pharm. course at MUST, Mbarara. As per Google Scholar, his h-index is 21 and i10-index is 35. Dr. Gerard Marshall Raj, holds an M.B.B.S. and M.D. in Pharmacology. Currently, he is working as an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Pharmacology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Bibinagar, Hyderabad, Telangana, India. He has contributed and co-edited the books “Introduction to Basics of Pharmacology and Toxicology Volume 1: General and Molecular Pharmacology: Principles of Drug action” (Springer Nature; ISBN: 9789813297784) and “Introduction to Basics of Pharmacology and Toxicology Volume 2: Essentials of Systemic Pharmacology: From Principles to Practice” (Springer Nature; ISBN: 9789813360082). He has also contributed book chapters in other books. Currently, he is the Faculty In-Charge of Hospital Pharmacy and Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) at AIIMS, Bibinagar. He has received multiple prizes for academic and research activities – including the Dr. Peter Sleight Memorial Award for outstanding individual performance and Dr. Salim Yusuf Team Award for best team performance during a course on ‘Randomized Controlled Trials’ organized by St. John’s Medical College and Research Institute, recently. He has acted as a resource person in various workshops, training programs, CMEs, and delivered invited talks as a guest speaker. He was awarded the “Prof. M. N. Ghosh Gold Medal” for outstanding performance during the M.D. Pharmacology course at JIPMER, Puducherry, and has published many research articles, reviews, commentaries, case reports, and letters-to-the-editor in peer-reviewed and indexed journals. He has acted as a reviewer for several elite journals and also for the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), UK – Global Health Research Unit and Groups Programme scrutinizing funding research proposals.

1.Experimental Pharmacology 1)Experimental methodologies involved in the discovery of drugs i.in vivoii.in vitroiii.ex vivo iv.in situv.in silico2)Common laboratory animals (experimental animals) i.Mouseii.Ratiii.Guinea pigiv.Hamsterv.Gerbilvi.Rabbitvii.Catviii.Pigix.Dogx.Monkeyxi.Frog xii.Zebra fishxiii.Chickenxiv.Transgenic animals
3)Animal handling and animal care i.Methods of anaesthetising animals and methods of euthanasia1.Anaesthetics used in labsii.Restraining and blood collecting methods iii.Breeding types and methods
4)Equipments (Instruments) in experimental pharmacology i.Kymographii.Organ bathsiii.Tissue levers usediv.Condon’s blood-pressure manometer
5)Experiments on isolated muscle preparations i.Standard isolated muscle preparationsii.Study of agonists and antagonists on isolated muscle preparations1.Dose response curve, cumulative dose response curve6)Experiments on anaesthetized intact animals i.Anaesthetized animal preparationsii.Testing of compounds on anaesthetized animals
7)Bioassay methods i.Bioassay of adrenalineii.Bioassay of noradrenaline iii.Bioassay of acetylcholine iv.Bioassay of histamine v.Bioassay of skeletal neuromuscular junction blockers vi.Bioassay of 5-HT vii.Bioassay of insulinviii.Bioassay of vasopressin/oxytocin ix.Bioassay of estrogenx.Bioassay of progestins xi.Bioassay of ACTHxii.Bioassay of angiotensin IIxiii.Bioassay of endothelin
8)Principles of EC50, ED50, pD2 and pA2 values of drugs i.Drug-receptor interactions and response including pDx and pAx values.ii.Step up and step down methods for LD
9)Physiological salt solutions 
10)Validation of animal models 
11)Drug screening methods involved in the evaluation of, i.CNS [55 pages]1.Antidepressant drugs 2.Antiepileptic drugs 3.General anesthesia 4.Antipsychotic (Neuroleptic activity) 5.Sedative-hypnotics (Hypnotic activity) 6.Anxiolytic drugs (Anxiolytic activity) 7.Antiparkinsonian (Anti-Parkinsonism activity) 8.Behavioral pharmacology models and evaluation of drugs affecting learning and memory (Drug effects on learning and memory) 
ii.CVS 1.Antianginal agents 2.Antihypertensive drugs 3.Anti-arrhythmic drugs 4.Cardiotonic activity (Cardiac hypertrophy and insufficiency)  5.Anti-platelet drugs 6.Diuretics 7.Antihyperlipidemic activity (Hypocholesterolaemic agents/ Anti-atherosclerotic activity) 
iii.GIT [35 pages]1.Antiulcer drugs 2.Antidiarrhoeal (Drugs affecting intestinal motility) 3.Anti-secretory 4.Emetic and anti-emetic activity 5.Hepatoprotective agents 6.Anti-obesity activity 7.Absorption studies 
iv.RS [14 pages]1.Anti-asthmatic agents 2.Antitussive and expectorant drugs 
v.Endocrine 1.Diabetes mellitus 2.Anti-thyroid 3.Anti-fertility drugs 
vi.Analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-pyretic activity 1.Analgesic 2.Anti-inflammatory drugs 3.Antipyretic 
vii.Ophthalmologic activity 1.Antiglaucoma drugs 2.Anticataract 
viii.Peripheral nerve function 1.Local anesthetic activity 2.Skeletal muscle relaxants (Neuromuscular blocking activity) 
ix.Mutagenic toxicity testing x.Anticancer drugs xi.Benign prostatic hyperplasia xii.Adrenergic blocking drugs (Autonomic) 
12)Drug screening methods used in screening antifungal, antihelminthic, antibacterial, antiviral agents, drugs for heart failure, posterior pitutary, adrenal steroid (gluco & mineralo corticoids), testicular, parathyroid, ovarian, thyroid hormones 
13)Preclinical toxicity studies i.Acute, subacute & chronic toxicity studies i.Local toxicities (Dermal toxicity, Ocular toxicity) ii.Organ toxicities in animals
14)Ethical issues in animal research i.Guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals1.Breeding of and Experiments on Animals (Control and Supervision) Rules, 1998ii.CPCSEA, IAEC composition & functioniii.Humane animal research (principles of 3Rs/ 5Rs) and alternatives to animal experimentation (cell culture, cell lines)
15)GLP 
2.Instrumentation in Drug analysis (Biochemical Pharmacology) (Standard physicochemical techniques) 1)Basic principles and applications of simple analytical methodsi.Qualitative testing ii.Titrimetric analysisiii.Beer and Lambert’s law iv.Processing of biological materials for drug analysis 2)Principles of quantitative estimation of drugs, endogenous compounds and poisons using i.Photometryii.Colorimetryiii.Spectrophotometryiv.Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopyv.Mass Spectroscopyvi.Fluorimetryvii.Photometryviii.Flame photometryix.Chromatography1.Basics of chromatography 2.High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)3.Gas chromatographyx.Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)xi.Radioimmuno assay (RIA)xii.Liquid chromatography and mass-spectrometry (LCMS)3)Calculations in drug analysis4)Good laboratory practice (GLP)5)Validation of analytical procedure6)Plant extraction methods
3.Research Methodology 1)Basic principles and related aspectsi.Study designs1.Cross Sectional studies2.Registries3.Case control studies4.Cohort studies5.Systematic reviews & Meta-analyses2)Ethical issues related to research on human subjectsi.Ethical guidelines of ICMR1.National Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical and Health Research involving Human Participants (2017)2.National Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research involving Children (2017)3.National Guidelines For Stem Cell Research (2017)ii.WHO, Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) - International ethical guidelines for health-related research involving humans (2017)iii.World Medical Association (WMA) Declaration of Helsinki – Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects (2013)iv.US - The Common Rule, Updated (2017)
4.Biostatistics [40 pages]1)Basic principles and their application in drug research2)Calculation of basic statistical parametersi.Meanii.Medianiii.Modeiv.Standard deviationv.Standard error3)Null hypothesis, parametric and non-parametric tests (Student ‘t’ test, Wilcoxon, ANOVA)4)Application of statistical soft waresi.GraphPadii.SPSSiii.Epi Infoiv.R