The Disciplines of Pharmacology and Toxicolgy
Pharmacology entails the study of the interaction of chemicals with biological systems to produce a favorable response-such as treatment of a disease. Similarly, toxicology focuses on studying the interactions of chemicals with biological systems that produce deleterious effects. Pharmacology and Toxicology are highly interdisciplinary sciences, drawing upon several closely related areas including biochemistry, chemistry, physiology, and cell biology.
This is a very exciting time to be part of the scientific community in exploring the development of these disciplines. Knowledge of the human genome sequence and the subsequent understanding of polymorphisms (differences in gene/protein sequence among individuals) are increasing rapidly. Such polymorphisms can markedly influence individual responses to drugs and toxicants in both enzymes responsible for the breakdown and transport of foreign chemicals as well as receptor molecules; thus, we are moving closer to pharmacological treatment of diseases that are tailored to each individual patient and are well along the way to understanding some of the underlying reasons for interindividual susceptibility to toxic agents. The development of new, high throughput tools to measure alterations in gene and protein expression along with the ability to examine changes in the content of hundreds of intracellular/extracellular components offer unprecedented opportunities to identify druggable targets in diseases and further understand the interactions of chemicals with biologic organisms at the molecular, cellular and whole organism level. This is leading to better therapies for diseases such as cancer, diabetes and AIDS and is enhancing our ability to protect humans and the environment from noxious chemicals.