Faculty

Research programs in the Physiology & Pharmacology discipline are conducted by over 50 independent investigators housed in the Medical and Dental Schools and affiliated with numerous departments including Cellular and Integrative Physiology, Pharmacology, Psychiatry, Endodontics, Medicine, Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, and Surgery. Investigators seek to integrate information from molecular, cellular, organ/system, and behavioral levels to spur discoveries, which will lead to new and improved treatment strategies for human disease.

Researchers utilize a host of animal and cell culture disease models, and incorporate innovative techniques including quantitative measures of behavior, designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs (DREADDS), in vivo two-photon subcellular imaging, optogenetics, transgenic animals, and CRISPR-Cas9-mediated gene editing. Using sophisticated genetic, molecular, and pharmacologic approaches, our scientists are unraveling the fundamental mechanisms that underlie cellular and systems level function, and how these processes are compromised in injury and disease.

UT Health San Antonio is renowned for its seminal contributions in many areas, including behavioral pharmacology, cardiovascular physiology, neurophysiology, and the physiological basis of aging. Internationally recognized research expertise is assembled in areas of addiction, cancer pharmacology, diabetes, neuropharmacology, and pain research.