Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology A Message from the Graduate Program Director

Welcome to the Pharmacology & Toxicology Graduate Program!

The University of Texas Medical Branch offers unprecedented opportunities for training and career development in the area of Pharmacology & Toxicology. With the growing need for new therapeutics against human diseases, the discipline of Pharmacology & Toxicology is taking center stage among biomedical sciences. A PhD in Pharmacology & Toxicology offers an opportunity for advanced studies in the field of drug discovery ranging from identification of new targets for therapeutic development to clinical trials that precede new drug marketing. Because of its interdisciplinary nature and intimate connection with the industrial sector, training in Pharmacology & Toxicology will equip graduates with the most diverse technical skills and instill a rigorous approach to science while promoting independent thinking and an entrepreneurial spirit in students. 

With strengths in Addiction and Mental Health Research, Cancer Biology, Environmental Toxicology, Medicinal Chemistry, Neuropharmacology, Neuroimmunology and Structural Biology, our graduate program works closely with:

1. the Center for Addiction Research (CAR, Dr. Kathryn Cunningham, Director);
2. the Sealy Center for Cancer Cell Biology (Dr. Lawrence Sowers, Director);
3. the Sealy Center for Environmental Health Sciences and Medicine (Dr. Cornelis Elferink, Director);
4. the Chemical Biology Program (led by Dr. Jia Zhou);
5. the Sealy Center for Structural Biology (Dr. Montgomery Pettitt, Director); and
6. Sealy Center for Vaccine Development (Dr. Alan Barrett, Director). 

We have two NIH funded T32 training grants: one in the area of addiction (Dr. Cunningham, Director) and another in the area of Environmental Toxicology (Dr. Ameredes, director) that are available to our students as specialized platforms for training and infrastructure for career development. In addition, UTMB is part of the Gulf Coast Consortia that offer additional intra-institutional T32 training grants in areas of research that span from computational biology to neuroscience, cancer pharmacology and bioinformatics.

Professor & Graduate Program Director
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology