Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Medicinal Chemistry
Faculty members of the Drug Discovery research core are broadly interested in bioorganic and natural product chemistry; biosynthesis of microbial secondary metabolites; and work at the interface of molecular genetics, enzymology, and chemistry toward the goal of creating and developing novel, pharmaceutically active compounds that are useful in the treatment of infectious disease and cancer. Structurally complex natural products are isolated from diverse biological organisms living in marine and terrestrial ecosystems all over the world.

Pharmacology
Faculty members of the Gene Regulation & Disease research core are studying the mechanistic basis for control of gene expression by transcriptional regulatory proteins in developmental and pathological contexts. These studies typically require a multidisciplinary approach involving the fields of biochemistry, cell biology, epigenetics, and molecular, systems, network, and developmental biology. The core has also created numerous genetically modified mouse lines that serve as models for human diseases.

Pharmaceutics
Faculty members of the Targeted Drug Delivery research core are developing novel, nanoparticle-based systems for the tumor-selective delivery of cancer chemotherapeutic agents. These nanoparticle-based delivery systems are designed to silence key, cancer-driving genes in the tumors as well as directly induce tumor cell death via induction of heat within the tumor mass.