The Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Utah currently offers training for the Ph.D. degree; starting Fall 2025, we will also offer a 1 year Master's Degree program. Since 1948, more than two hundred individuals have been trained by this program. Our graduate students hail from all regions of the country, as well as internationally, and enjoy close working relationships with their faculty mentors, rich and diverse research opportunities, and flexible programs of study based on their individual needs and interests. Students gain didactic teaching and public speaking experience by participating in our professional teaching, journal club and seminar programs.

Our overall objective is to provide broad, multidisciplinary training that enables our students to pursue careers in a variety of settings, including colleges and universities, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, government laboratories, and private research institutes and foundations (see Alumni). The guiding philosophy emphasizes the development of scientific investigators who have a broad interdisciplinary background in modern biomedical sciences (cell and molecular biology, physiology and biochemistry), as well as training in the concepts and approaches of pharmacology and toxicology. We also train individuals in state-of-the art approaches to hypothesis-driven research.

Our program is designed to be exciting and challenging, and at the same time, supportive and flexible enough to meet the specific needs and interests of the students and their mentors.

Because pharmacology and toxicology are interdisciplinary sciences, this is reflected in the breadth and diversity of training, which involves course work, seminars, journal clubs and laboratory research. Students generally enter the PhD Program in Pharmacology and Toxicology through the Bioscience PhD Program, complete their first year, rotate in multiple labs during that year, and transfer to a PHTX Lab.