The biochemical pharmacologist uses drugs as probes to discover new information about biosynthetic pathways and their kinetics, and investigates how drugs can correct the biochemical abnormalities that are responsible for human illness. Behavioral pharmacology studies the effects of drugs on behavior. Research includes topics such as the effects of psychoactive drugs on the phenomena of learning, memory, wakefulness, sleep, and drug addiction, and the behavioral consequences of experimental intervention in enzyme activity and brain neurotransmitter levels and metabolism. Endocrine pharmacology is the study of actions of drugs that are either hormones or hormone derivatives, or drugs that may modify the actions of normally secreted hormones. Endocrine pharmacologists are involved in solving mysteries concerning the nature and control of diseases of metabolic origin.
Clinical pharmacology is the study of pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics in human beings.
Clinical pharmacologists study how drugs work, how they interact with other drugs, how their effects can alter the disease process, and how disease can alter their effects. Chemotherapy is the area of pharmacology that deals with drugs used for the treatment of microbial infections and malignancies. Pharmacologists work to develop chemotherapeutic drugs that will selectively inhibit the growth of, or kill, the infectious agent or cancer cell without seriously impairing the normal functions of the host. Veterinary pharmacology concerns the use of drugs for diseases and health problems unique to animals. Often confused with pharmacology, pharmacy is a separate discipline in the health sciences.