Pharmacodynamic & Pharmacokinetic Processes

• General Principles

1. Pharmacokinetics: absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, dosage intervals.

2. Mechanisms of drug action, structure-activity relationships
   o concentration- and dose-effect relationships (eg, efficacy, potency), types of agonists and antagonists and their actions.

3. Individual factors altering pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics (eg, age, gender, disease, tolerance, compliance, body weight, metabolic proficiency, pharmacogenetics).

4. Drug side effects, overdosage, toxicology.

5. Drug interactions.

6. Regulatory issues (eg, drug development, approval, scheduling).

• General properties of autacoids, including peptides and analogs, biogenic amines, prostanoids and their inhibitors, and smooth muscle/endothelial autacoids.
• General principles of autonomic pharmacology.
• General properties of antimicrobials, including mechanisms of action and resistance.
• General properties of antineoplastic agents and immunosuppressants, including drug effects on rapidly dividing mammalian cells.