Lesson 9: Pharmacodynamics: Receptors and Drug Action

• Introduction to pharmacology
• Understand the drug approval process
• Understand the three nomenclature systems (chemical name, generic name, trade name) used to identify a particular therapeutic substance
• Drug-receptor binding
• Understand and clearly discuss the ligand-receptor interactions; know the underlying physical principles that govern these interactions
• Understand chirality, enantiomers, racemic mixtures, and the chiral specificity of many drug receptors
• Receptors
• Understand the various types of drug receptors present within the human body
• Understand the various types of receptor responses
• Understand receptor response differences to agonists and antagonists
• Quantifying effects of drugs on the human body
• Describe and plot drug concentration/dose vs response curves; understand what is meant by EC50, IC50, and LD50
• Understand and compare the relative potency and efficacy for two or more drugs; draw or interpret dose-response graphs that illustrate these
• Understand and clearly discuss the linkage between therapeutic and toxic doses