Our Team
Welcome to our Department
Welcome to the Department of Pharmacology in the School of Medicine at UC Davis. The Department comprises a dynamic group of faculty, researchers and students from diverse backgrounds undertaking investigations to reveal biological mechanisms that will ultimately lead to discovery and development of new drugs and drug targets for a variety of human diseases.
Under the direction of Chairman Donald Bers, Ph.D., the Department is in the midst of rapid and vigorous growth, as part of a major expansion of the basic biomedical sciences in the School of Medicine. Currently, the UC Davis Department of Pharmacology consists of 17 faculty with strong connections with other Departments, Graduate Groups and Research Centers constituting a powerful interactive team engaged in research, teaching and service. UC Davis Pharmacology is one of the nation’s top ranked pharmacology departments in federal research funding and hosts many postdoctoral trainees and graduate students from different Graduate Groups.
Key research areas within the department include cardiovascular and neural physiology/pharmacology, genetic basis of disease, synaptic plasticity and development, autoimmune disorders and infectious diseases. These diverse areas of study are unified by a common goal – to understand mechanistically the critical building blocks of biological systems from molecules to cells and organ systems, in health and disease, and to identify components that can be modified through pharmacology or other therapeutic strategies to cure disease. Please visit our Research Overview page and Faculty Research pages for details of ongoing work in the individual Departmental laboratories.
FACULTY SPOTLIGHT
Faculty member Florin Despa and his research team have identified amylin accumulation to be linked to obesity and diabetes. Find out more about this exciting research.
RECENT ADDITIONS TO OUR FACULTY
We are pleased to announce the recent addition of five new faculty members to our department.
