Pharmacology is the branch related with the study and results of drug action, where a drug is widely defined as any man-prepared, natural, or endogenous molecule which exerts a biochemical or physiological effect on the cell, tissue, organ, or organism (sometimes the word pharm cone is used as a term to encompass these endogenous and exogenous bioactive species).It deals with the ADME process of any pharmaceutical Drugs. The field includes tranquilize piece and properties, union and medication outline, atomic and cell components, organ/frameworks instruments, flag transduction/cell correspondence, sub-atomic diagnostics, communications, toxicology, compound science, drugs, treatment, medicinal applications and many related topics.

Clinical Pharmacology:

Clinical pharmacology is the science of drugs and their clinical use and also it connects the gap between medical practice and laboratory science. The main objective is to promote the safety of prescription, maximize the drug effects and minimize the side effects. It is that important that there should be association and team or group with pharmacists skilled in places of drug information, medication safety and other aspects of pharmacy practice related to clinical pharmacology .Receptor theory is the application of receptor models to explain drug behavior.  Receptor theory for drug effects and results and its discovery and observations with clinical pharmacology has stretched out to be a multidisciplinary field and has contributed to the findings of drug interaction, therapeutic effectiveness and safety.

Subtracks:

1. Therapeutic Drug Monitoring

2. Drug Development

3. Clinical and Forensic Toxicology

3) Clinical Pharmacology:

Clinical pharmacology is the science of drugs and their clinical use and also it connects the gap between medical practice and laboratory science. The main objective is to promote the safety of prescription, maximize the drug effects and minimize the side effects. It is that important that there should be association and team or group with pharmacists skilled in places of drug information, medication safety and other aspects of pharmacy practice related to clinical pharmacology .Receptor theory is the application of receptor models to explain drug behavior.  Receptor theory for drug effects and results and its discovery and observations with clinical pharmacology has stretched out to be a multidisciplinary field and has contributed to the findings of drug interaction, therapeutic effectiveness and safety.

Subtracks:

1. Therapeutic Drug Monitoring

2. Drug Development

3. Clinical and Forensic Toxicology

Neuropharmacology:

Neuropharmacology is the study and research of drugs which affect cellular function in the Neuro system, and the neural mechanisms through which they influence behavior. There are two main branches of neuropharmacology: Behavioral and Molecular. Both of these fields have been closely connected, since  related with the interactions of various Neuropeptides, Neurotransmitters, Neuro-hormones, Neuromodulators, enzymes, secondary messengers, co-transporters, ion channels, and receptor proteins in the central and peripheral CNS.

Subtracks:

1. Future Aspects of Neuropharmacology

2. Clinical Neuropharmacology

3. Neurochemical Interactions

4. Neurogenesis and Repair

5. Behavioral Neuropharmacology

Ethanopharmacology:

The knowledge of Ethnopharmacology, its holistic and systems approach which is supported by experiential base can serve as an innovative and powerful discovery engine for newer, safer and affordable medicines. Ethno pharmacology is a highly diversified approach for drug discovery which involves the observation, description and experimental investigation of indigenous drugs and their biologic activities that is based on botany, chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacology, and other disciplines (anthropology, archaeology, history, and linguistics) contributing to the discovery of natural products with biologic activity. Ethno pharmacology is a holistic approach to drug development, using the latest technology for measuring as many different parameters as possible to discover possible leads to the mode of action with ethno botanists, ethno pharmacologists, physicians and phytochemists playing a key role.

Subtracks:

1. Integrative pharmacological investigations

2. Toxicological issues with Ethanopharmacology

3. Ethnopharmacological perspectives from traditional to modern pharmaceuticals

4. Latest trends in Ethnopharmacology

Drug Interaction:

A Drug interaction is an interaction between a drug and some other substance, such as another drug or a certain type of food, which prevents the drug from working correctly. Interactions should always be considered in the differential diagnosis of any unusual response occurring during drug therapy. Early detection could enable reconsideration of the culprit treatment regimen and prudent management if they do lead to adverse events. The fact that two drugs share a common metabolic pathway does not mean they will have a clinically significant interaction when co-administered; the interaction being dependent upon various factors including relative affinities of each drug.

Subtracks:

1. Adverse Drug Reaction

2. Drug – Drug Interaction

3. Drug – Food Interaction

4. Drug – Receptor Interaction

5. Drug -  Herb Interactions 

Toxicology:

Toxicology is the scientific study of adverse effects occurring in living organisms due to chemicals and drugs. It involves observing and reporting symptoms, mechanisms, detection and treatments of toxic substances, in particular relation to the poisoning of humans. Computer modeling is an example of alternative testing methods for Toxicology; using computer models of chemicals and proteins, structure-activity relationships can be determined, and chemical structures that are likely to bind to, and interfere with, proteins with essential functions, can be identified. This work requires expert knowledge in molecular modeling and statistics together with expert judgment in Chemistry, and Toxicology.

Subtracks:

1. Applied Toxicology

2. Clinical Toxicology

3. Immune Toxicology

4. Toxicity Testing

In vitro techniques:

In vitro techniques are conducted mainly by using components of an organism that have been isolated from their usual biological surroundings such as microorganisms, biological molecules, or cells. Specially called "test-tube experiments", these studies in biology and its subdisciplines are traditionally done in labware such as test tubes, flasks, Petri dishes, and microtiter plates. In vitro studies permit a species-specific, simpler, more convenient, and much more detailed analysis than can be done with the whole organism. Just as studies in whole animals more and more replace human trials, so are in vitro studies replacing studies in whole animals. In pharmacology, In vitro techniques can be used to approximate pharmacokinetics (PK) or pharmacodynamics (PD). Since the timing and intensity of effects on a given target depend on the concentration time course of candidate drug (parent molecule or metabolites) at that target site.

Subtracks:

1. Organ Cultures

2. Tissue Slices

3. Priary Cell Cultures

4. Established Cell Lines

5. Cell Lines

Vertebrates (Zebra fish) model:

A recent vertebrate model, the Zebra fish has proven to a very good model for toxicity testing. Studies on various chemicals have shown that Zebra fish have shown that 90% of these produced specific tissue, organ and behavioral toxicity. These have been used and validated in large scale high throughput screens for various psychotropic drugs. Their use has increased in the past two decades and a population-based atlas of the zebra fish brain has recently been developed. Zebra fishes develop rapidly, are small, inexpensive to maintain, in large numbers. Chemical administration can be done directly to fish water or by microinjection of small amounts of chemicals. The morphological and molecular basis of tissue and organ development are, in general, either identical or similar to other vertebrates including man. . It has a nearly transparent body during early development, which helps easy visual access to the internal anatomy. The optical clarity allows direct observation of developmental stages, identification of phenotypic traits during mutagenesis, easy screening, assessment of endpoint of toxicity testing and direct observation of gene expression through light microscopy. Small size, short life cycle and high fecundity favor its laboratory use. Drug metabolism can also be studied in hydra, a eumetazoan diploblastic organism belonging to the phylum Cnidaria.

Subtracks:

1. Pathophisiology

2. Pharmacotherapy

In Silico studies:

These are mechanistic models that aim to predict sensitization from mechanistic knowledge and empirical models that are aimed at predicting from a statistical perspective. These alternatives can be substituted by demonstrations using computer-simulated learning programs. Exercises in the form of graphs, tables obtained from various animal experiments can be used. Several “virtual humans” have been constructed by creating mathematical models of known human reactions. A few examples include computer models to model human metabolism, to study plaque buildup and cardiovascular risk and to evaluate toxicity of drugs. The digital frog and more recently award-winning virtual frog is available where a student can dissect a frog layer by layer.

Subtracks:

1. Microfluidic Chips

2. Expharma and Xocology studies

3. TOPKAT

4. DEREK

5. TIMES-SS

Invertebrate animals:

Invertebrate organisms are widely used as an alternative for laboratory use of animals. They have been used to study various diseases like Parkinson’s disease, endocrine and memory dysfunction, muscle dystrophy, wound healing, cell aging, programmed cell death, retrovirus biology, diabetes and toxicological testing. Invertebrates can be used to replace the more commonly used laboratory animals. The most used invertebrate species are Drosophila melanogaster, a fruit fly and Caenorhabditis. elegans, a nematode worm. Drosophila melonogaster is a classic model used for detecting mutagenicity, teratogenicity and reproductive toxicity. Similarly, fruit flies can be useful to identify novel virulence factors or pharmacologically active compounds. These organisms have short life cycle and can be studied in large numbers, a distinct advantage over the vertebrates.

Subtracks:

1. Amphimedon queenslandica

2. Sea Slug

3. Hydra/Cnidaria

Microdosing:

Microdosing an alternative approach to study the behavior of drugs in humans through the administration of doses in low concentration, as they are unlikely to produce the complete-body effects, but high enough to allow the cellular response to be studied.It may be said as the less than one hundredth of the proposed pharmacological dose This is called a Phase zero study and is usually conducted before clinical Phase I to predict whether a drug is viable for the next phase of testing. Microdosing on Humans aims to cut short the resources spent on non-viable drugs and the amount of testing done on animals and experimental trials. Microdosing studies enable potential new drugs to be tested safely in humans using accelerator mass spectrometry. The technique has been developed commercially trials were conducted with several major pharmaceutical companies It is reported that 15 among  the 20 largest pharmaceutical companies have now used microdosing as a new trend in drug development, and the use of the technique has been provisionally endorsed by both the Medicinal Agency of Europe and the Food and Drug Administration.

Subtracks:          

1. Radioisotope carbon

2. Accelerator Mass Spectrometry

Microorganisms:

The ethical issues have posed many restrictions over the experimental use of higher model vertebrates like guinea pig, rats, dogs, monkeys etc. Therefore, use of alternative organisms has been proposed. Different model organisms are used to replace experimental animals Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the most popular and important model organism due to its rapid growth, ease of replica plating and mutant isolation, dispersed cells, well defined genetic system and highly versatile DNA transformation system. Tetrahymena pyriformis – a ciliate protozoan being used to study the effects of anesthetics on metabolism.

Subtracks:

1. Salmonella typhimurium

2. Escherichia coli

3. Bacillus subtilis

4. Neurospora crassa

Non-invasive imaging technologies:

The term noninvasive is used to denote a procedure where no instrument is introduced into a patient's body which is the case for most imaging techniques used. Medical imaging has become a major tool in clinical trials since it enables rapid diagnosis with visualization and quantitative assessment. Imaging is able to reveal subtle change that is indicative of the progression of therapy that may be missed out by more subjective, traditional approaches. Statistical bias is reduced as the findings are evaluated without any direct patient contact. Imaging biomarkers (a characteristic that is objectively measured by an imaging technique, which is used as an indicator of pharmacological response to a therapy) and surrogate endpoints have shown to facilitate the use of small group sizes, obtaining quick results with good statistical power.

Subtracks:

1. Magneto encephalography (MEG)

2. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

3. Functional MRI (fMRI)

4. Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS)

5. Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

6. Event-Related Optical Signals (EROS)

7. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)

Organ on chips model:

In the early phase of drug development, animal models were the only way of obtaining in vivo data that would predict the human pharmacokinetic responses. However, experiments on animals are lengthy, expensive and controversial. Therefore, imitising a human’s physiological responses in an in vitro model needs to be made more affordable, and needs to offer cellular level control in biological experiments: biomimetic microfluidic systems could replace animal testing. The development of MEMS-based biochips that reproduce complex organ-level pathological responses could revolutionize many fields, including toxicology and the developmental process of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics that rely on animal testing and clinical trials. Efforts made toward the development of micro fabricated cell culture systems that aim to create models that replicate aspects of the human body as closely as possible and give examples that demonstrate their potential use in drug development, such as identifying synergistic drug interactions as well as simulating multi-organ metabolic interactions.

Subtracks :

1. Human on chips

2. DNA chips

3. Heart on a chip