Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Characteristics of the department
The main purpose of the department is to provide to the students of accredited study programs, as follows: General Veterinary Medicine, Pharmacy, Food Hygiene, Veterinary Nurse, Feed and Food safety, and Relationship Between Animal and Human, high quality knowledge on the fields of pharmacology and toxicology at today's level of veterinary and pharmaceutical science as well as environmental education and training. The education in the Slovak language but in the program of general veterinary medicine, veterinary nurse and the combined study program "bachelor in animal science" is in English language. The students will be able the acquired theoretical and practical knowledge to apply in their future daily veterinary and pharmaceutical practices. The department provides education not only in the pre-university level, but also in the postgraduate level in the form of training courses and study programs of doctoral study and rigorous study. The scientific research activities of the department are on the field of the effects of drugs, pesticides and other xenobiotics on human and animal organisms directly as well as through alternative in vitro tests.
In the field of veterinary pharmacology Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology (DPaT) provides the teaching of compulsory subjects "Pharmacology, Pharmacy and Pharmacoterapy" in the study programs General Veterinary Medicine, Food Hygiene an Veterinary Nurse in Slovak language. Within the compulsory optional course, "Clinical Pharmacology" is taught. In the study program Pharmacy, the institute provides the compulsory subject "Veterinary Pharmacology" and compulsory optional subject "Veterinary Therapeutics". For foreign student in English language is taught compulsory subjects "Pharmacology, Pharmacy and Therapeutics" and compulsory optional subject "Clinical Pharmacology". In the Joint study program Animal Science the subject "Introduction to Pharmacology" is taught. In scientific research activities, the Institute of Pharmacology focuses on the issues of pharmacology of drugs and therapeutic preparations and their residues in the animal organism. Research is also focused on effects of natural substances and xenobiotics on live organisms at molecular and cellular levels. The institute solves different tasks in pharmacological and clinical field as well.
In the field of veterinary toxicology DPaT provides the pregraduate teaching of the compulsory subject – Toxicology in the study programs General Veterinary Medicine, Pharmacy, Veterinary Nurse and Food Hygiene in the Slovak language. The obligatory elective subject –Ecotoxicology is in the Study Program of the General Veterinary Medicine. Toxicology and Ecotoxicology are offered to foreign students in English. The department also provides the compulsory subject – “The Analysis of Contaminants in Feed and Food” in the Study Program Food and Feed Safety and the compulsory elective subject – “The Basis of Scientific Work” in the study programs – General Veterinary Medicine and Food Hygiene. The Institute occupies the research tasks related to the effect of xenobiotics, especially pesticides, on the organisms (livestock, domestic and wild animals), as well as the assessment of the health and environmental risks of these substances, for both, for animals and humans.
DPaT in the field of human and clinical pharmacology provides undergraduate compulsory subjects "Pharmacology" and "Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapy" for the students of pharmacy. In addition, several optional subjects as "Free radicals and antioxidants", "Phytopharmaceuticals", and "Drugs applied during pregnancy and lactation". DPaT propose topics for diploma theses for student of all study programs and rigorous theses for students of additional study of pharmacy. In co-operation with external scientific institutions, the main research topics of DPaT in the field of human pharmacology comprise: 1) The pharmacological influence on the central regulation of food intake, and 2) The antitumor effect of substances isolated from natural sources.