Pharmacology involves the discovery of new drugs, the investigation of how drugs work and the use of drugs to probe mechanisms of disease. But pharmacology also involves the elucidation and manipulation of macromolecular structures, the analysis of regulatory mechanisms in cell biology and development, and the translation of this information into clinical research. Thus, the science of pharmacology spans the most fundamental aspects of basic research, through transgenic animal models, to clinical investigation. Pharmacology at Penn addresses all of these issues in an exciting, collegial and interactive environment.

The Department of Basic Medical Sciences encompasses molecular to whole animal approaches and generally emphasizes molecular processes in development as applied to growth, differentiation, regeneration, and oncogenesis. Model systems are employed to investigate both animal and human disease, as well as biomedical engineering. Current research programs involve: signal transduction in development and oncogenesis, cell adhesion molecules in development and oncogenesis; growth factors in musculoskeletal development; ovarian follicle development; neural regeneration; implantable therapeutic or diagnostic devices, and application of computers in veterinary and medical education.

As the drug discovery and development arm of the National Cancer Institute, the Developmental Therapeutics Program (DTP) plans, conducts, and facilitates development of therapeutic agents for cancer and AIDS. We are your resource for research materials, including Web-accessible data and tools, vialed and plated compounds, tumor cells, animals, and Investigational New Drug (IND)-directed studies.

Representing over a 100 years of exploration, discovery, and research, the Division of Paleontology is home to one of the largest fossil collections in the world.

Genome programs of the US Department of Energy, founder of the Human Genome Project and leader in systems biology research.

The Brain Imaging and Analysis Center (BIAC) brings together scientists from throughout Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to find interdisciplinary solutions to fundamental research questions about the human brain. Two key themes underlie research at BIAC. The first is to improve research techniques in neuroimaging, through improvements in MR pulse sequence design, applications to high-field fMRI, experimental control, and understanding of brain hemodynamics. Second, BIAC researchers investigate the functional properties of the human brain by incorporating these state-of-the-art research techniques into studies of cognitive processing. BIAC researchers investigate the organization of visual cortex, the cortical control of attention, brain circuits involved with learning and memory, among many other research topics.

Our overall theme is to understand the underlying basic mechanisms by which individuals can reduce their risk to cancer, inflammatory damage, and chronic degenerative diseases by improving their ability to respond to environmental stresses through chemoprevention, diet, and other preventive strategies.

The EMBL-EBI lies in the 55 acres of landscaped parkland in rural Cambridgeshire that make up the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus. As we move towards understanding biology at the systems level, access to large data sets of many different types has become crucial. Technologies such as genome-sequencing, microarrays, proteomics and structural genomics have provided ‘parts lists’ for many living organisms, and researchers are now focusing on how the individual components fit together to build systems. The hope is that scientists will be able to translate their new insights into improving the quality of life for everyone. However, the high-throughput revolution also threatens to drown us in data. There is an ongoing, and growing, need to collect, store and curate all this information in ways that allow its efficient retrieval and exploitation. The European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), which is part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), is one of the few places in the world that has the resources and expertise to fulfil this important task.

The European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] is an international research organisation with its main laboratory in Heidelberg [Germany], and four outstations in Hinxton, [UK] [the European Bioinformatics Institute, EBI], Grenoble [France], Hamburg [Germany], and Monterotondo [Italy]. Research at EMBL emphasizes experimental analysis at multiple levels of biological organisation, from the molecule to the organism, as well as computational biology, bioinformatics and systems biology.

The Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems (ETE) Program was formed by a group of professional researchers in paleontology who study the evolutionary paleoecology of land ecosystems. We share a conviction that long-term patterns of evolutionary change cannot be fully understood without knowledge of changes in ecology (at many scales) over geologic time periods, and an understanding of the interaction between ecological and evolutionary processes. Thus, we are interested not only in how the environment has changed, but how ecosystems themselves have changed, and how evolution has occurred in its ecological context over the last 400 million years. The ETE database captures and organizes fossil evidence concerning land biotas in support of ETEs research objectives. The ETE Program is is affiliated with the Departments of Paleobiology and Anthropology (Human Origins Program) at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

The Food Safety Risk Analysis Clearinghouse is the responsibility of the Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (JIFSAN), a collaboration between the University of Maryland (UM) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). A steering committee, comprised of five members from the JIFSAN and the FDA, oversees the development and operation of the Clearinghouse.

One of the nation's first comprehensive cancer centers designated by the National Cancer Institute in 1974, Fox Chase conducts basic and clinical research; programs of prevention, detection and treatment of cancer; and community outreach. We invite you to learn about us. Current faculty research programs are wide-ranging and include: gene expression; molecular aspects of oncogenesis; viral molecular biology and pathogenesis; molecular structure and function analysis; pharmacology and therapeutics; regulation and development of the immune system; cell cycle control; human genetics; and cellular and developmental biology.

The National Geographic Society, IBM, geneticist Spencer Wells, and the Waitt Family Foundation have launched the Genographic Project, a five-year effort to understand the human journeywhere we came from and how we got to where we live today. This unprecedented effort will map humanity's genetic journey through the ages.

Part of the School of Psychology, the Sonification Lab studies the psychophysical and practical aspects of auditory displays, paying particular attention to sonification. Special consideration is paid to Human Factors in the display of information in "complex task environments," such as in cockpits, nuclear powerplants, and Space.

The mission of the Center is to help people understand that our health, and that of our children, depends on the health of the environment, and that we must do everything we can to protect it.