Pharmacology

Pharmacology is a big part of the future of science. “Pharmacology is the science and practice of developing and administering chemicals as agents in the treatment of diseases” (Waskey 2008). A pharmacologist’s job is to create a special cure that not only treats the disease but also to leave the patient with minimum side effects. It’s a hard occupation that is fairly new but has been practiced since the beginning of diseases. The process of becoming a pharmacologist is quite complex and it “usually requires a doctoral level graduate degree, which takes about four or five years to earn after a bachelor’s degree”(Robinson 2009). A bachelor’s degree in anything relevant to molecular biology is preferred to be able to move on to graduate school. After graduate school, where the Ph. D is obtained, “the clinical pharmacologist often has medical training (M.D) with specialized training in the use of drugs in the treatment of disease”(Robinson 2009). Eight to ten years of schooling and training is what is expected after a high school diploma is received. The study of pharmacology has been around for an extensive time. One big role in the development of pharmacology is Botany, the study of plants. “Through the process of trial and error, early humans discovered which plants might be used as a food source… which caused sickness or death, and which had medicinal value”(Schanger & Lauer 2001). Plants and herbs today still play a key role in medicines and anything else we put into our bodies. The ancient Greeks were the first to discover the medicinal value in plants (Schanger & Lauer 2001). “Dioscorides applied this knowledge and described nearly a thousand different pharmacological treatments…and is often referred to as the ‘father of pharmacology’” (Schanger & Lauer 2001). Pharmacology is generally split into two main branches, pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics (Lapensee 2012). Pharmacodynamics is the study of what a drug