Welcome to the Department of Pharmacology & Physiology

A Message from the Chair, Robert Dirksen, Ph.D.

The Department of Pharmacology and Physiology consists of faculty, fellows, students, and staff who are dedicated to cutting-edge scientific research, in order to work towards a better understanding of how the human body functions and to alleviate human diseases.

The faculty is composed of distinguished scientists who are international leaders in the fields of cell signaling, G-proteins and ion channels, mitochondria and mechanisms of cell death, cardiovascular diseases and vascular biology, neurodegeneration and drugs of abuse, and integrative neurosciences.

The department promotes a strong training program for both graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, and many of our graduates have gone on to become leaders in academia, industry and government.

The University of Rochester is now in the process of implementing a new strategic plan, which emphasizes a number of research fields, including neuromedicine and cardiovascular biology that fit well with our research interests. The Department is enthusiastic about being a part of this plan and the anticipated growth in the University’s research enterprise, as we aim to be one of the finest medical centers in the world.