PHARMACOLOGY

Our research on diseases involves basic, strategic and applied research in biochemistry and pharmacology directed at: (1) understanding how the immune system resolves infection (by parasites, viruses, bacteria) and tissue injury; (2) how prolonged inflammatory responses can cause debilitating chronic inflammatory diseases, including onset of cancers, metabolic diseases (obesity, type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, cardiovascular diseases), chronic inflammatory pain, and neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. Alzheimer's disease); and (3) how our novel compounds can act on human proteins, human and rodent cells and tissues, and rat or mouse models of human diseases. See links for our publications in all of these disease areas and allied chemical, biochemical and pharmacological research. Our interests include molecular pharmacology (studies of novel ligand interactions with cellular receptors, modulation of intracellular signalling pathways using experimental new drugs discovered in our labs, mechanisms of physiological responses and disease induction/progression) and experimental pharmacology (studies of drug-induced effects in rodent models of human diseases, interrogating molecular mechanisms in vivo, examining human tissues from the clinic). Our goal is to discover new drugs, mechanisms of drug action and understanding disease development and how to treat it.