Clinical Pharmacology and Applied Biochemistry

Clinical pharmacology will provide students with the skills to analyze drugs and their effects, to examine the benefits of biotechnological drugs approved for the treatment of several rare diseases, to discuss the aspects related to pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics as well pharmakokinetics.
It will be discussed how to design a clinical trial as well as how to interpretate the results from clinical trials, including the definition of primary and secondary endpoints. A special focus will be given to therapies based on the use of monoclonal antibodies and gene silencing approaches in the field of cardiometabolic disorders. Several aspects associated to genetic experimentation, genetic medicine, pharmaco surveillance and epidemiological medicine will be discussed.
The module of Medical genetics intends to provide students with the fundamental principles of inheritance, the genetic mechanisms underlying Mendelian and non-Mendelian diseases and related genetic tests. Another purpose of the module is to provide a general knowledge of the main methods used in the field of human molecular genetics, through examples of identification of the gene responsible for a genetic disease and examples of cellular and gene therapy.
The purpose of the Applied Biochemistry didactic unit is to provide participants with knowledge and understanding of some of the methodologies useful in clinical and research laboratories that employ biochemical and enzymatic approaches for diagnostic purposes and for the development of drugs and biotechnological products. The practical part will be based on the discussion of multiple choice tests and clinical cases.