Pharmacology

The Laboratory of Pharmacology is responsible for teaching Core Pharmacology and Toxicology (VANB607) in the spring semester of the second year curriculum. The lecture material emphasizes the principles of pharmacokinetics, the mechanisms of drug action, the sites at which drugs act, and how drugs may interact with, and alter the activity of, various organ systems. The material also include properties, mechanisms of action, and biological effects of various chemical substances (drugs, environmental pollutants, toxins of plant origin, etc.) that interfere with normal cell and organ function. The course is intended to deal chiefly with basic pharmacology and toxicology rather than clinical therapeutics, although some therapeutics will be discussed in relevant areas.

The faculty in the Laboratory of Pharmacology have a wide range of interests in several basic sciences: pharmacology, physiology, cell biology, molecular biology, neuroscience and reproductive biology.

Faculty

Contact

Francis C. Luca, PhD
Head, Laboratories of Pharmacology
Professor of Physiology
215-573-5664 (office phone/voice mail)
fluca@vet.upenn.edu

University of Pennsylvania
School of Veterinary Medicine
3800 Spruce Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6010

Faculty Focus

Michael J. May, PhD

Associate Professor,
Animal Biology

The May laboratory investigates signal transduction pathways that lead to altered patterns of gene expression in immune and inflammatory responses.

We are particularly interested in understanding how the loss of control of normal signaling contributes to the progression of diseases such as chronic inflammation and cancer.

Our goal is to determine the specific molecular events underlying aberrant signals and to define realistic targets for selectively blocking abnormal, while maintaining physiologically normal responses.

The focus of our work is the Nuclear Factor (NF)-kappa B transcription factor activation pathway that is critical for inflammation, innate and adaptive immunity and lymphocyte development. NF-kappa B activation is typically a rapid and transient response, however constitutive NF- kappa B activity occurs at sites of chronic inflammation and in various tumors, leukemias and lymphomas.

We combine cellular, molecular and genetic approaches to determine the mechanisms that redirect normal NF-kappa B activation pathways into this functionally abnormal, constitutively active state.

In addition to determining the basic mechanisms of NF-kappa B activation we have a long-standing interest in understanding the role of NF-kappa B in regulating the phenotype and function of vascular endothelial cells.