About Us

About the Department

The department of toxicology and cancer biology is a multidisciplinary unit for research, graduate education, and professional training in the broad areas of toxicology and cancer biology. The program was founded in 1969 in the Graduate School, as one of nation’s first PhD programs in toxicology and moved to College of Medicine (COM) in 2004. Our education mission is to provide students with an education in toxicology and cancer biology that is based on an understanding of biochemistry, physiology, molecular/cell biology, genetics and metabolism, coupled with in-depth research experience on the mechanisms by which specific agents induce toxicity, and/or the basic cellular processes upon which environmental agents impact to cause disease. In addition, the department provides the only Master of Forensic Toxicology and Analytical Genetics (or degree of comparable nature) in the state and it is only the fifth such professional master’s degree in the field of forensics in the nation.

Our department consists of 23 tenured/tenure track core faculty with a primary appointment in toxicology and cancer biology and includes the Chair, Dr. Xiaoqi Liu. The diversity of training opportunities is enhanced by faculty who have joint appointments in the department, but whose primary appointments are in departments and colleges across the university. The department of toxicology and cancer biology has graduated more than 150 PhDs in toxicology who have gone on to careers in academia, government, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry. The department maintains a robust extramurally supported training environment, including an NIEHS T32 training grant for doctoral students in toxicology, which has been continuously funded since 1990 and has been renewed for funding until 2021.

The PhD program in toxicology ranked in the top quartile in the National Research Council survey of doctoral programs in toxicology and is also supported by an environmental toxicology training grant funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). The following pages describe the research, teaching, and training programs of toxicology and cancer biology.

Leadership