The research activities of the Pharmacology Program are directed at understanding how drugs and chemicals modify biological systems.
Drugs can act at many different levels of organization.
Dr. Bertino is examining the role of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes in the development of chemotherapeutic drug resistance. Dr. Xu has developed techniques to measure protein-protein interactions, and inhibitors of these interactions. Dr. Sirotnak focuses on the molecular mechanism of acquired resistance to antineoplastic agents which has led to the discovery of a new and highly potent analog of methotrexate. Often the actions of drugs are mediated by specific receptors located on the cell surface or intracellularly. Dr. Pasternak is using molecular and biochemical techniques to characterize the receptors for analgesic drugs such as morphine.