About Us
In view of what has already been done and what the future holds, we are poised to meet our challenges.
The Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience has grown in number and stature and is truly interdisciplinary. We have set a high bar in education, research, and mentorship for the field and beyond on a national and international scale. The department occupies over 40,000 square feet of modern laboratory space and is amongst the most well-equipped research and educational facilities of its kind worldwide.
Our mission remains to:
- Provide outstanding education to future generations of researchers and health care providers
- Realize impactful research discoveries that influence the health and well-being of our patients and the integrity of our field
- Sustain ourselves as role models for our students and colleagues
Pharmacology continues to be among the most dynamic of the biomedical sciences. Neuroscience research has been a major emphasis of the department at UNMC from its earliest days. This expanded with the 2004 merger of UNMC's internationally recognized Center for Neurovirology and Neurodegenerative Disorders into the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience. Over 120 faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and support staff collaborate in state-of-the-art research facilities on the UNMC campus.
Interdisciplinary Research
The joining of experimental neurosciences and pharmacology reflects the interplay between studies of disease pathobiology of the nervous system with an eye towards therapeutic interventions that lead to better treatments and inevitably disease cures. Concerted efforts have clearly bridged neurosciences with pharmaceutical discoveries define our mission. Growth in multiple interdisciplinary fields that define genomic, proteomic, metabolomic, nanomedicine, and bioimaging defines our science and the new discoveries made towards improving both diagnostics and therapeutics into inflammatory, infectious and neurodegenerative diseases.
Our Impact
Unraveling disease mechanisms for disorders of the nervous system remains a mainstay of departmental activities. Our laboratories focus on immunotherapies and platforms for testing drugs in animal models of HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Multiple Sclerosis and neuroinfectious and neuroinflammatory disorders and how they affect neurocognitive, psychiatric and motor function. Department core facilities and centers of technology excellence abound in the department with principal collaborators in confocal imaging, magnetic resonance imaging, and bioimaging.