Pharmacology
Location: 3135 Weiskotten Hall, 766 Irving Ave., Syracuse, NY 13210
Phone: 315-464-5138
Fax: 315 464-8014
Website: Pharmacology Program
This program awards:
- PhD in Pharmacology
Current research in the Department of Pharmacology focuses on cancer biology, pharmaceutical science, drug discovery, structure-based drug design, cell signaling, cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration, infectious disease and stem cells.
The department's strengths include cardiac electrophysiology and cardiac arrythmia; the molecular biology of signaling pathways; intracellular proteolysis; regulation of tumor suppressors and the discovery, development and testing of novel cancer therapeutics.
To continue this excellent tradition in research and teaching and to keep pace with ongoing changes in pharmacology, our department is enhancing its research strengths and expanding into new research areas in pharmacology such as cancer drug discovery, pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine.
The recent and significant growth of the department is aligned with the strategic focus on cancer as one of the university's research pillars and with the 2010 opening of the Upstate Cancer Research Institute, which is designed to become a premier cancer research institute in the region.
What's the
SUNY Upstate difference?
Internationally known cancer researcher Ziwei Haung, PhD, was appointed in 2009 as professor and chair of the Department of Pharmacology and director of the SUNY Upstate Cancer Research Institute.
As director Huang promotes greater collaboration among Upstate faculty doing basic, clinical or translational cancer research. Huang brings to Upstate more than $2 million in NIH grants. His laboratory has shown that synthetic cell binding peptides can induce destruction of tumor cells and suppress the growth of tumors in mice.
He also discovered organic compounds that mimic the tumor-killing effect of these binding peptides. Huang is planning further studies to advance these inhibitors to human clinical trials as a new class of anti-cancer drugs.