Next time your medicine works, you might have Leigh Warsing to thank.

Warsing, a research pharmacologist at Caliper Life Sciences in Hanover, is in the “drug development and discovery services.”

In layman’s terms, Warsing’s job is to test how well certain hormones or toxins bind to receptors in bodily tissue.

“My research could help develop a new drug,” Warsing said. “I like being a part of something that matters.”

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How well or how long the drug binds, Warsing said, indicates how much it will affect the organ.

The binding, in turn, shows the pharmacologists which drugs are better suited to treat which diseases.

Because her job is drug-based, Warsing said, clients are most often pharmaceutical companies.

“We have clients all around the world that send us certain unknown compounds,” Warsing said. “We send them back the results.”

Katie Smith, Warsing’s fellow research pharmacologist at Caliper, said that the unknown is the appealing nature of pharmacology.

“There’s always an opportunity to learn new things," Smith said, “and people are always willing to throw you a new challenge.”

In a test tube, the tissue, a chemical mixture, and the unknown are mixed and radioactivity is used to read what remains bound.

“We look at stomach tissue to measure how much a hormone controls digestion, or brain tissue to measure effects of dopamine and serotonin,” she said.

Other areas such as pharmacy, nursing, dentistry and veterinary medicine also rely on pharmacologists, said the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics’ Web site.

Warsing, who was a biology major in college, said her job involves a lot of math and science — and luckily, she's always been interested in those subjects.

Her position also gives her the chance to move forward to working with DNA research or in immunology.

Most importantly, Warsing’s job is an essential starting point.

“People in the end of my job, down the line, eventually will make new drugs,” she said. “It’s cool to know you're at the bottom doing something to help make a life-saving drug.”

kprahlad@baltimoreexaminer.com