Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
The Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences is one of three academic departments in the College of Pharmacy. The department's primary academic mission is to provide students in the professional pharmacy program with both a theoretical and a practical knowledge base in the pharmaceutical sciences. This includes the didactic instruction of pathophysiology, pharmaceutics, pharmacokinetics, immunology, pharmacology, toxicology and pharmaceutical biotechnology.
Research Program
The department also maintains a highly visible research program with emphasis in cancer biology, toxicology, immunopharmacology, neuropharmacology and general pharmacology. The activities of department researchers have long been supported by a wide range of funding sources. In recent years, these have included the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA), National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institute of Environmental Health Safety (NIEHS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Office for Alternative Medicine (OAM), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), American Cancer Society (ACS), American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), Susan Komen Foundation, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) Foundation, American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education (AFPE), AriZeke Pharmaceuticals, Lazzara Charitable Foundation, and the WSU Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Center.
Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) students who are interested in research can also participate in laboratory research under direction of department researchers.
Research and service units which are housed in the department include the Cancer Prevention and Research Center (CPRC), the U.S. Transuranium and Uranium Registries (USTUR), which includes the National Human Radiobiology Tissue Repository (NHRTR), and the National Radiobiology Archives (NRA), and the Wegner Hall Vivarium.
Graduate Program
Pharmaceutical Sciences is also the home department for WSU's Graduate Program in Pharmacology and Toxicology (P/T), which prepares students for careers in pharmaceutical and biomedical research. The graduate faculty in the program are drawn not only from Pharmaceutical Sciences but also from the departments of Veterinary and Comparative Anatomy, Pharmacology & Physiology (VCAPP), Psychology, Chemistry, Genetics & Cell Biology, Zoology, Food Science & Human Nutrition, Entomology, and Kinesiology & Leisure Studies at WSU, Food Science & Toxicology at the University of Idaho (Moscow, Idaho), and Health Risk Assessment, Molecular Bioscience, and Biology & Chemistry at the Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Richland, Washington).
P/T graduate faculty serve as advisors and mentors to M.S. and Ph.D. students. In recent years, the P/T graduate program has accepted students from WSU, the University of Washington, the Idaho State University, Lewis-Clark State College, University of Utah, University of California at Davis, California State Polytechnic University, Beijing Medical University (China), Shenyang Medical College and Pharmaceutical University (China), Madras Medical College (India) and Andhra University (India). Graduates of the P/T program can be found in academia, the pharmaceutical industry and Federal research institutes.
In recent years, postdoctoral research fellows and visiting scientists have come to the department from Australia, Brazil, China, France, Japan, Korea and Spain for additional training and research opportunities.