Welcome to Our Department
Welcome to the Department of Pharmacology at the Quillen College of Medicine. Faculty members of our Department are actively engaged in delivering outstanding teaching to undergraduate students, graduate students, medical students, and residents. Our Doctor of Philosophy (graduate) students matriculate to Pharmacology through the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program at the Quillen College of Medicine. Our faculty members are trained in several medical disciplines and our research applies methodological approaches that span molecular biology, cellular biology, systems biology, and human biology and pathology. Through research, our department strives to understand human disease pathology and use this understanding to develop new therapeutic entities (e.g. drugs) for the treatment of major human diseases. The primary foci of department research efforts are cardiovascular and neuropsychiatric diseases, although other areas of interest and activity exist. Our laboratories are funded by the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and a variety of other agencies and sources. Please visit our investigators’ web pages for more information regarding our research programs.
What is PharmacologySimply stated, pharmacology is defined as the study of the effects of drugs on biological processes. The field of pharmacology includes the study of drug composition and properties, interactions of drugs with biomolecules such as proteins, and the physiological, behavioral, therapeutic and/or toxic effects of drugs and other substances. Pharmacology is not synonymous with pharmacy, which is a profession that is focused on the delivery of drug therapy to patients. The fundamentals of pharmacology are taught to students in several disciplines, including medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and others. Since therapy for nearly all human diseases involves treatment with drugs, pharmacology is a translational discipline. Modern pharmacology has become increasingly focused on the molecular nature of drug effects and how they affect complex biological systems. It engages and interweaves several traditional medical disciplines such as molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, microbiology and neuroscience to advance the treatment of disease.