About Us
About the Department
The Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology (DMMP) is a combined basic science and clinical department. The DMMP integrates mathematics, engineering, physical, biological and medical sciences to achieve together advances that we cannot achieve individually in three overall areas: (1) understanding biology of disease, (2) developing new molecular diagnostics and (3) developing new molecular and cellular therapeutics.
The DMMP offers an opportunity for students, postdocs, medical fellows, and basic and clinical faculty to explore together the molecular and biological mechanisms that regulate cellular and organ functions to (1) identify and understand molecular errors of disease, (2) develop means to diagnose and monitor disease, and (3) develop pharmacological means to correct these errors. The Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging (CIMI) was established by DMMP faculty. As an Organized Research Unit housed in the California NanoSystems Institute, the CIMI is a collaborative center where creative innovations and technology development in systems biology, microfluidics, nanotechnology, and molecular imaging are advancing discoveries and translating to improvement in the diagnosis and treatment of human disease. Within the DMMP, the Ahmanson Translational Imaging Division (ATID) has both Nuclear Medicine and PET imaging research and clinical services. Trainees have access to state-of-the-art science and technology to directly impact patient care.
Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging
The Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging in the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology brings together faculty, students, and staff with a variety of backgrounds – physics, mathematics, engineering, biology, chemistry, and medicine – to pursue innovative technologies and science to accelerate our understanding of biology and medicine. Trailblazing technology programs, linked by systems biology, microfluidics, nanotechnology, and molecular imaging, provide the tools to conduct integrated science in a unique, interdisciplinary setting. The faculty, students and staff of the Crump Institute have established a rich history of invention and commercialization with long lasting outcomes in setting worldwide academic and commercial standards through the invention of novel technologies, such as the microPET.
The Crump Institute’s ultimate objective is to provide biomedicine with new science and technologies to describe, assess, and measure biological function across states from health, through the earliest abnormalities, to frank disease. The new tools and knowledge we generate will accelerate the development of targeted therapies central to the new era of molecular medicine.
Ahmanson Translational Imaging Division
The Ahmanson Translational Imaging Division is part of the UCLA department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology. The goal of the division is to address clinical needs by understanding the biology of diseases, and developing diagnostic tools and therapeutics to improve the outcome of patients. The Division faculty, students, postdoctoral fellows and research staff are engaged in imaging research and education, and clinical service in the molecular imaging diagnostics of the biology of disease within the Nuclear Medicine clinical service with conventional and PET/CT imaging.
The DMMP is home to the Molecular and Medical Pharmacology Ph.D program, Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging, and Ahmanson Translational Imaging Division, containing PET and Nuclear Medicine imaging research and clinical service.