To augment the undergraduate educational contribution of Neuroscience and Pharmacology, faculty members Katelin Dannen, Ph.D., Associate, and Barry Kasson, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Associate Chair for Education, have developed two new undergraduate pharmacology courses and significantly revamped one existing course. The new courses, Pharmacology I: A Drug’s Fantastic Journey and Pharmacology II: Mechanisms of Drug Action, are targeted to Junior and Senior science majors from the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, including Neuroscience, Biochemistry and Pre-Med majors. The first course introduces basic pharmacology principles by following the journey of a drug from its site of administration to its site of elimination, and covers common mechanisms by which drugs affect the body, exemplifying mechanisms of drug action on two primary body systems, the nervous and cardiovascular. The second course expands upon basic pharmacological concepts and further explores how they define drug action on the body, covering current treatments of various diseases including neuropsychiatric and immune disorders, cancer, diabetes, and microbial infections. Both courses feature highly interactive application sessions where students apply course material via collaborative work on problem sets/activities.

Our long-standing and popular undergraduate pharmacology course for non-science majors, Drugs: Their Nature, Action, and Use, was renamed as Drug Use and Abuse and significantly revamped such that it can now be taken for UI General Education credit. This course continues to provide an outstanding opportunity for our advanced graduate students and postdoctoral scholars to obtain valuable teaching experience to supplement to their research training.

We thank Katelin and Barry for their tremendous efforts towards enhancing our teaching presence on the UI campus!