Physiology and Pharmacology

Multidisciplinary, widespread research is conducted at the Department of Physiology and pharmacology. Research laboratories are located both at the Sackler School of medicine in Tel-Aviv University, as well as in the many affiliated hospitals and research institutes. The investigators of our department have ongoing collaborative arrangements with colleagues abroad and in Israel. Many research projects of the department are funded by extramural grant agencies (ISF, BSF, GIF, FP7, RCA, NIH, etc.). Scientific achievements of the department are highly appreciated by the international scientific community.

The physiology research labs explore fundamental processes such as neuronal activity of the brain, muscle contractility, neurotransmitter and hormone secretion, calcium homeostasis and signal transduction in excitable and non-excitable tissues, sub-cellular organization of micro-domains, cellular trafficking and targeting of ion-transport and regulatory proteins, lipid-protein interactions in the membrane, metabolic regulation, mitochondrial bioenergetics, and cell mechanics. The pharmacology research labs investigate physiological and pathological processes related to tumor biology, vascular biology, neurobiology, nanotechnology and nanosciences.. 

The research groups utilize advanced techniques of modern optics (FRET, FREB, TIRF, two-photon microscopy, Digital holographic microscopy, intravital non-invasive imaging techniques including spectral fluorescence, bioluminescence, MRI and Ultrasound), molecular biology (RT-PCR, site-directed mutagenesis, siRNA, shRNA, micro RNA,  transgenic mice, proteomics, metabolomics, etc.), biochemistry (protein expression and purification using FPLC and HPLC, immune-blotting, SDS-PAGE, Mass-Spectra analyses, etc.), electrophysiology (whole-cell and single-channel patch-clamp, voltage-clamp, etc.) and biophysics (X-ray crystallography, SAXS, ITC, SPR, NMR, LC/MS/MS).