AN OVERVIEW

The University of Florida College of Medicine was started in 1955 under the leadership of its first Dean Dr. George Harrell. In that year, Thomas H. Maren, M.D. was recruited as the founding chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics and the first medical student class started in 1956. Over the next few years under Dr. Maren's leadership, faculty were recruited, research programs initiated and the teaching curriculum developed and implemented.

Because pharmacology is a bridging discipline between basic and clinical science, the department throughout its history has strived to maintain a primary faculty that includes basic and clinical scientists. Dr. Maren's own interests also set the example, which continues today, with faculty not only involved in fundamental research but also in translating basic knowledge in application. For example, Dr. Maren was instrumental in developing inhibitors for the enzyme carbonic anhydrase that culminated in a drug that is marketed for the treatment of glaucoma.

Since it's founding, the department has facilitated and promoted faculty achievement in research, teaching and service. These achievements have been recognized by faculty teaching awards, appointments as journal editors and as members of editorial boards, national and international grant review committees, national organization committees and organizers of national and international scientific meetings. Students trained by the faculty in the department have gone on to become outstanding basic and clinical investigators, teachers and administrators in academia, industry and government.

Over the past decade and a half, the pace of biomedical discovery has accelerated, and is becoming more multidisciplinary in nature. As a dynamic scientific discipline, the faculty in pharmacology are committed to a focus on cutting edge basic and translational research coupled with flexible education and training programs to help prepare young investigators to meet the exciting scientific challenges of the future.

The department is composed of primary faculty, research faculty, postdoctoral associates, graduate and undergraduate students, technical support staff and administrative personnel. In addition, there are a number of jointly appointed faculty representing other departments in the Colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy, Veterinary Medicine, Dentistry, Engineering, Arts and Sciences, the Veterans Medical Center and the Whitney Marine Laboratory. Joint faculty bring additional research expertise and teaching experience to the department for mutual benefit.

The faculty in the department have diverse but in many cases interrelated research interests which facilitates a stimulating environment for discovery and provides students and other trainees with ample opportunity to expand their knowledge base and develop interdisciplinary research skills. A number of the faculty are also involved in the process of drug development. This process includes biological target selection and validation, chemical lead development and optimization and disease model testing. Success in these preclinical basic studies are necessary before human clinical trials are initiated. Not only does this activity allow faculty and students to expand their basic research into application but exposes them to the legal and regulatory aspects of drug development and promotes interactions with pharmaceutical companies. Currently, several drugs co-developed by the faculty are in various stages of development. Departmental proceeds from application research are being used to established endowed professorships and to help maintain a modern research infrastructure.

The Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics in the College of Medicine is located in the Academic Research Building within the Health Science Center. Because the Health Science Center is part of the main University of Florida campus, the department through its faculty and students enjoys strong ties with other aspects of the university. The relationships to chemistry, biological sciences, engineering, agriculture, and social sciences are of particular importance.

The department provides individual and multi-user research laboratories, faculty and administrative offices, small and large conference rooms, a small library and common equipment rooms. The department currently occupies approximately 15,000 sq. ft. of space. Advanced multidisciplinary research requires up-to-date equipment and facilities; our department is well equipped for these needs. Networked computers with access to scientific data bases, spectrometers, scintillation and gamma counters, cell culture, radioisotope and molecular biology facilities, a mass spectrometer, gas and high pressure liquid chromatographs, ultracentrifuges, darkroom facilities, electrophysiology and microinjection set-ups and high speed digital fluorescence imaging are among the many resources available.

A number of research institutes and centers have been formed to enhance multidisciplinary and interdepartmental research interactions among the faculty and students. These centers and institutes provide core research facilities, seminar programs and additional training opportunities for the faculty and students. For example, the Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research (ICBR) provides core facilities for biological computing, flow cytometry, protein chemistry, DNA and genome sequencing and electron microscopy to name a few. Most faculty in the Department of Pharmacology have affiliations with one or more of these centers which include:

University of Florida Location: http://www.med.ufl.edu/pharm/department/overview.shtml
Updated: Apr 24, 2008, © 2005 University of Florida