New progresses in studies of safety pharmacology

Safety pharmacology is the preclinical assessment of adverse functional effects of a drug and/or its metabolites on critical organ systems,such as the cardiovascular,respiratory and central nervous systems.Through the safety pharmacology studies,whether the safety of drugs may relate to pharmacological effects of non-expectation can be determined,whether the experimentally and/or clinically observed adverse drug reactions and/or patho-physiological roles can be evaluated;mechanisms of observed in institute and suspected adverse drug reaction can be clarified.Safety pharmacological technologies have been developed rapidly in recent years.In particular,telemetry systems can be used to collecte multipal physiological data in conscious and undisturbed animals.It is widely accepted that a comprehensive risk assessment should be conducted for drug-induced QT interval prolongation.Drug toxicity in human can be precisely predicted by new technologies,such as in silico toxicity,human cardiac stem cell research,the hypothalamus histopathologic study,high-throughput screening using zebrafish,and the exploration of biomarkers related to safety pharmacology.