Facts

Chair

Joan Heller Brown

Department of Pharmacology

• First among the nation's Pharmacology Departments in research grant awards from the NIH
• 21 full-time and 15 adjunct faculty

  3 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators

  7 Members of the National Academy of Science

• 10 Research Scientists
• 50 Postdoctoral Investigators
• 49 Support Staff
• 65 Ph.D. Students

Areas of Research

• Signal Transduction
• Drug Design
• Integrated Systems and Animal Models
• Pharmacogenomics

The UCSD program is renowned for its strength in elucidating basic cellular and molecular mechanisms of signal transduction that lead to drug target identification and ultimately to drug discovery. Many of the department's research efforts impact directly on human health, supported by NIH grants on hypertension, cardiovascular regulation, cancer, and neurological and inflammatory diseases.

Partnerships with other leading institutions

The department's research directions include computational and molecular science, catalyzed by the department's close affiliation with the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and structure guided drug design and bioinformatics. Cross campus efforts in environmental health sciences and pharmacogenomics have been launched through major NIH funded project grants. The new School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SPPS) at UCSD interacts closely with the Department where many of its faculty will have joint appointments. Additional affiliations with adjunct faculty at the Salk Institute, the Scripps Research Institute, the Burnham Institute, and the appointment of adjunct faculty from the local biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry create a natural bond for cross fertilization and communication, bridging the department's basic science efforts, and enhances endeavors in drug discovery.