Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology (P&T)
The Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology is currently headed by an Associate Professor, Bulus Adzu, PhD.
The department is made up of four (4) Units;
- Pharmacology (responsible for in vivo and in vitro efficacy studies);
- Toxicology (responsible for in vivo and in vitro safety studies);
- Laboratory (manages the in vivo and in vitro laboratories), and;
- Animal Facility Centre (AFC) (responsible for breeding and maintenance of laboratory animals).
The staff strength stands at 16: 3 Professors; 5 Research Fellows (of various cadres); 4 Technologist (of various cadres); 1 Chief Nutritionist; 2 Livestock Overseers and a departmental Secretary.
The current research activities in the department include:
Safety studies
- Acute toxicity (1 – 14 days)
- Sub-chronic toxicity (28 – 30 days)
- Chronic toxicity (90 days)
Efficacy studies
- Antimalarial/parasitic diseases
- Anti-inflammation/Anti-nociceptive
- Analgesic/Antipyretic
- Behavioural studies/CNS
- Anti-diabetes/Endocrine disorders
- Anti-ulcer/Anti-diarrhoeal
- Reproductive/fertility studies
- Immunomodulation
- Isolated tissue/organs assay
Pharmacokinetics studies
- Herb-drug interaction studies
- Drug metabolisms assays
Laboratory animals
- Mice
- Rats
- Guinea pigs
The department functions are;
- Evaluate safety of drugs and drug products using acute, sub-acute, chronic and in vitro toxicological procedures;
- Perform efficacy studies of drugs and drug products for the treatment of common and emerging diseases; including verification of claims by traditional medicine practitioners;
- Determine potential of interaction between herbal products and synthetic medicines using in vivo and in vitro techniques;
- Breed quality laboratory animals.