General Presentation
This unit is part of INRA animal health department (www.inra.fr/sa)

The studies concentrate particularly on pharmacology and toxicology of veterinary medicine. The main objectives are to improve the therapeutic strategies (dosage), to suggest improvement in hygiene and food safety ( residues, environment contamination), to diagnose prion diseases with endocrinic markers and to keep the necessary documentation required by regulations ( bio-equivalence).

As far as fundamental research is concerned, this unit works on modelling ( relations between parmacokinetics/pharmacdynamics and population models) and the design of software specializing in pharmacokinetics.

With regard to applied research, the unit focuses initially on animal welfare ( alternatives to animal experimentation, study on local tolerance to veterinary products), then on food safety ( residues, antibioresistance, prion diseases).

The main characteristic of the subject studied by the unit is to consider pharmacology as an integrating element via pharmacokinetics.

Pharmacokinetics studies the effect of the animal on molecules ( medicines, hormones, enzymes, prion proteins). It is used as a tool for issues such as the research of markers for the diagnosis of non invasive prion diseases or the dosage optimisation of antibiotics in order to minimize the risks of antibioresistance.