The Doctoral Program in Pharmacology conforms to the regulations of the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program where all doctoral students take the same multidisciplinary courses during the first year, and then select pharmacology discipline as their choice during the second year to pursue their research goals. The areas of research interest in pharmacology include cardiovascular, endocrine, cancer, viral, environmental, gene therapy and neuropharmacology. Graduate students after completing the core curriculum take selected lectures in medical pharmacology, principles of pharmacology and other elective courses.

Degree Programs Offered at Tulane

Recognizing that student's career interests and goals are varied, the Tulane Pharmacology graduate program offers the following degree choices:

Master of Science (MS)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Combined MD-MS or MD-PhD

Students interested in the MD-MS or MD-PhD degree programs need to first gain admittance into the medical school for the MD program. Additionally, postdoctoral training programs in specialized areas of research are available.

Why Should I Choose Tulane?

Tulane Medical School is one of the top medical schools in the south. The faculty in our pharmacology graduate training program are dedicated to the concept of instilling a breadth of training during the first 2 years of graduate education, followed by an in-depth training in the student's area of dissertation research. The research activities of the pharmacology faculty at Tulane cover a wide spectrum of topics, unlike many other institutions which tend to specialize in one area (e.g. in neuropharmacology only). This wide spectrum of research expertise provides the incoming student with a wide variety of research opportunities to choose from for their dissertation research. Our faculty are especially concerned with the progress and welfare of the graduate students. Unlike some other institutions, the number of graduate students in pharmacology is kept to a maximum of 162-18 students, so that the 9 core faculty can give close and personal attention to each student. The relationships formed between students and faculty during the course of a student's graduate career are typically life-long.

Program Objectives

The objectives of the Ph.D. degree program are to produce well trained scientists who have a firm broad foundation in pharmacology, but who have definite interests and expertise in a particular subdiscipline or area. Ph.D.'s will be trained with emphasis in preparing them to do postdoctoral study in an academic pharmacology department, at the same time recognizing that some graduates may elect for a career in industrial pharmacology.