Legacy Code 300912

Coordinator Gang Zheng Opens in new window

Student Contribution Band

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Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:

1. Describe mathematically the kinetic and mechanistic aspects of availability and removal of drugs in the body, including under conditions of continuous and periodic dosage.
2. Explain and compare the main forms of metabolic, oxidative and hydrolytic degradation experienced in vivo by the members of each of the major types of drug class.
3. Relate the chemical structure of members of a given major type of drug class to their relative stability to chemical oxidative, hydrolytic and enzymatic degradation in vitro, and to their ease of phase partitioning.
4. Describe the transport and the environment experienced in vivo of members of the major types of drug class relevant to their site of action.
5. Demonstrate appropriate advanced laboratory skills, for collection of kinetics and physicochemical data of the bioavailability, degradation and removal of drug molecules.

Subject Content

1. Kinetics of the bioavailability, degradation and removal of drug molecules.
2. Principles of pharmacokinetics of the transport of drugs across membranes of cells and tissues within the body.
3. Theory of physicochemical factors affecting the bioavailability of drugs in the body: pH, pKa, permeability, plasma protein binding, dissolution, molecular size and shape, hydrogen bonding, Log P, viscosity, conductivity, mobility, and hydrophibicity.
4. Principles of pharmacokinetics and mechanism of metabolism (oxidation, hydrolysis and conjugation), enzymatic degradation and stability within the body of members of the major types of drug: linear and nonlinear elimination, enzymatic, Michaelis-Menten and atypical kinetics.
5. Theory of in vitro adsorption of drugs onto proteins: free drug, receptors, agonists and messengers, Langmuir plots.
6. Time course concentration of the drugs in the body: from dose to time-course concentration of the drug in the plasma, area under the curve, renal clearance, elimination rates.