The Center for Pharmacogenetics
The Center was established in 1999 to advance research and training in pharmacogenetics and related disciplines. The research theme of the Center is individualized medicine, while member and associate member faculty participate in research specifically focused on pharmacogenetics, nucleic acid chemistry, functional genomics, gene therapy and its delivery, and human genetics. The Center, which was established as a University of Pittsburgh initiative in the School of Pharmacy, is also funded through the National Institutes of Health and the pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry.

The Center for Education and Drug Abuse Research (CEDAR)
Drug abuse, neuroendocrinology, and genetics come together in CEDAR.  An interdisciplinary consortium between the University of Pittsburgh and St. Francis Medical Center, CEDAR has been funded by NIDA since 1989 to study Drug Abuse Vulnerability: Mechanisms and Manifestations. This is a 20-year prospective investigation of 1,000 families, with the overarching aim of identifying the factors associated with liability to substance use disorders in the context of its developmental progression for the period of late childhood to age 30.

The Pharmacodynamic Research Center
The Pharmacodynamic Research Center was established in 1984 for the purpose of defining factors that contribute to variability in clinical drug response.  The Center is a consortium of faculty, staff, and students that has a long history of training clinical pharmaceutical scientists.  A primary research focus is to characterize variability in patient response as it is affected by interactions between drug(s) and hormone(s) and/or nutritional supplements/natural products.  The contribution of demographic factors, aging, and genetics are also investigated.  Members of the Center are skilled in pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic modeling, as well as multiple bioanalytic techniques including mass spectrometry and proteomics. Initially supported by a pharmaceutical company, the current sources of financial support include the NIH and the pharmaceutical industry.

Center for Pharmacoinformatics and Outcomes Research
The knowledge that a drug is an effective treatment for a specific ailment is only one aspect of the patient care continuum. In order to continually improve upon the quality of patient care, it is essential to understand the relationship between therapeutic drug use and important clinical and patient-focused outcomes.  The Center was established in 2000 to characterize these relationships by integrating state-of-the-art informatics technology with the traditional fields of clinical therapeutics, epidemiology, decision modeling, economics, and statistical analysis.  The Center has strong collaborative relationships with the UPMC and other regional healthcare institutes.  This unique positioning combined with the scientific expertise of the faculty, enables the Center to provide innovative solutions to today’s healthcare problems.