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The Department of Pharmacology is concerned with the study of the interaction of living cells and organisms with the molecules they encounter in their environment and resides within the School of Medicine at the University of Washington. The department's areas of active research range from the evaluation of the effects of drugs and environmental chemicals on humans and animals to the study of the actions of hormones, neurotransmitters, and other physiological regulators on individual cells and the examination of the detailed molecular structure of cellular constituents which play critical roles in cellular regulation and drug interactions. Current research in pharmacology applies experimental methods derived from clinical medicines, biophysics, biochemistry, molecular biology, and other disciplines to provide a detailed understanding of drug action and cellular regulation at many different levels, including the human patient, the individual cell, and the genes that specify their structure.