Pharmacology (Hons)

Overview

Pharmacology is the study of all aspects of medicines, including how they are developed, analysed, tested for their safety and effectiveness, administered, their beneficial and adverse effects, together with all aspects concerning their research.

The curriculum for this Pharmacology (Hons) course at the University of Malta is structured as follows:

• Year 1 provides a solid basis of the required physiology, molecular biology, genetics and statistics, which is required to benefit from the rest of the course. It also lays the foundations for pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, drug formulations, drug development, regulatory issues, routes of drug administration, molecular pharmacology, pharmacotherapeutics, pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics.
• Year 2 delivers a sound knowledge of all the major drugs and drug classes, their modes of action and their application in the respective therapeutic fields. This year also provides students with practical laboratory bench teaching and training in various skills of molecular pharmacology research, such as cell culturing, drug assays, cellular transfection etc.
• Year 3 introduces pharmacotoxicology and toxicogenomic aspects, as well as the innovative fields of digital therapeutics and of computational drug design. Students will prepare their dissertation during this year, further contributing to the acquisition of a skill set which is transferable to the employment sector.

Career opportunities

The course provides the necessary skills and expertise for graduates to contribute to high level scientific research and academic publications. It will also provide the necessary skillbase to contribute to several commercial sectors, including the pharmaceutical manufacturing Industry, pharmaceutical importation, medical representatives, national poisons unit, drug information units and drug regulatory areas including pharmacovigilance and pharmacoeconomic cost centres.

Moreover, candidates will also be skilled to contribute to laboratory work including research laboratories, pharmaceutical quality control laboratories, analytical laboratories, biotechnology laboratories such as those offering DNA services and pharmacogenetic testing as well as toxicology laboratories.

The course will also open the path to academic careers in the areas of pharmacology, pharmacotoxicology, biotechnology and related life sciences.