(Elective / Teaching hours per week: 3/ Laboratory hours per week: 0/Assessment: final exam at the end of each term and/or September and optional term paper/Credits: 3 )
Angeliki Kourounakis, Professor
Andreas Papapetropoulos, Professor
• Molecular basis of drug action.
• Major drug targets.
• Drug-Receptor bonding interactions.
• Types of Receptors. Superfamilies of ligand-gated ion channels, GPCRs, Tyrosine kinase and intracelluar receptors. Signal transduction pathways and their role in drug action.
• Types of Drug-Receptor interaction (agonists, antagonists, partial and inverse agonists)
• Contribution of molecular pharmacology to Ligand/Drug Design
• Molecular mechanism of free radical processes in the body and inhibition thereof.
• Nucleic acids as drug targets/ drugs acting on DNA or RNA.
• Applications of molecular biology and genetic engineering in pharmacotherapy. Oligo/polynucleotides as therapeutic agents.
• Biotechnological drugs (preparation, mechanism of action, applications) for growth factors, cytokines, antibodies.