The Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics Program (MPET) provides students with an interdisciplinary education spanning the disciplines of pharmacology, biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, organic chemistry, structural biology, pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics. A highly interactive, multidisciplinary group of over 20 faculty members performs basic and translational research to define the biological, genetic and physiological processes that underlie disease states, and to apply those findings to the active development of more effective therapeutic strategies for the treatment of disease.
Some current areas of research:
Cancer
Novel therapeutics and their mechanisms of action
Apoptosis
DNA repair, checkpoint regulation, genomic stability
Mechanisms of drug resistance
Mitogenic and antiapoptotic signal transduction
Cardiovascular diseases
Cardioprotective and cardioregenerative medicine
Bioenergetic signaling
Genetic basis of cardiac diseases
Neurosciences
Molecular and genetic mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases
Novel therapeutics to treat neurodegenerative diseases
Genetic basis of drug and alcohol addiction
Novel therapeutics to treat addition
Pharmacogenomics and pharmacogenetics
Determination of the role of inheritance in individual differences in drug response using recent advances in genomics and high throughput techniques for analysis of DNA
Drug discovery
Rational drug design using computer modeling and protein structure determination
High-throughput screening and identification of novel drug candidates
Director's Welcome
"The MPET Ph.D. program prepares students to pursue outstanding research careers that impact the treatment and understanding of human diseases." more...
