title: Fifty years of Biochemical Pharmacology: the discipline and the journal.
abstract: The discipline of biochemical pharmacology emerged in the late 1940s as a result of an increasing emphasis on understanding drug mechanisms at the cellular level. This research approach has contributed significantly to the development of many new drug classes including antihypertensive, antifective, cholesterol lowering, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer agents, as well as antipsychotics, antidepressants and anxiolytics. Biochemical pharmacology remains a major tool in drug discovery, being employed in the search for novel therapeutics for the above and other conditions and clinical challenges, such as neurodegenerative disorders, for the treatment of pain, and for development of agents that do not induce, or can overcome, antibiotic/antiviral resistance. Together with chemical, molecular, genetic, physiological, and clinical sciences, biochemical pharmacology will in the coming decades continue to be a critical component of the drug discovery process.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS, USA.
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Enna
authors.forename: G Z
authors.initials: GZ
authors.lastname: Feuerstein
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Piette
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Williams
mesh_terms: D001671:Biochemistry; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D010600:Pharmacology; D011643:Publishing / Q000266:history*