Tag: Common questions

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What Is Pharmacology?

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A collage of different cartoon images showing scientists working across a spectrum of basic science, chemistry, biology, research, genetics, and medicine, illustrated by images of an EKG readout, test tubes and a pipette, a syringe and medicine bottle, a chemical structure, a microscope, a pill bottle and pill, a data chart, a hospital, a DNA strand, and a human silhouette.
Credit: iStock.

Pharmacology is the study of how molecules, such as medicines, interact with the body. Scientists who study pharmacology are called pharmacologists, and they explore the chemical properties, biological effects, and therapeutic uses of medicines and other molecules. Their work can be broken down into two main areas:

  • Pharmacokinetics is the study of how the body acts on a medicine, including its processes of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME).
  • Pharmacodynamics is the study of how a medicine acts in the body—both on its intended target and throughout all the organs and tissues in the body.
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Why Am I So Tired?

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An alarm clock rests on top of a model of the human brain. In the background, gold stars against a dark blue backdrop represents nighttime (left), and white and light blue clouds against a light blue backdrop represents daytime (right).
Circadian rhythms control the timing of many daily changes in your body. Credit: iStock.

If you struggle to wake up in time for school or work or feel drowsy during a trip abroad, your circadian rhythms may be out of sync with your environment. Circadian rhythms are your internal timekeepers, and almost all organisms, from bacteria to plants and animals, have them. You can’t see them, but you can feel their effects—they control when you get sleepy, when you wake up in the morning, and when you feel hungry. Among other signals, the brain uses sunlight to keep time.

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