Pharmacology
Pharmacodynamics
Pharmacodynamics is the study of the biochemical and physiological effects of a substance on the body and its mechanism of action.
Detailed Explanation
While pharmacokinetics describes what the body does to the drug, pharmacodynamics describes what the drug does to the body. For peptides, this includes receptor binding affinity, signal transduction activation, dose-response relationships, and downstream gene expression changes. Understanding pharmacodynamics is essential for determining research dosing protocols.