General Overview

The School of Pharmacy offers training at the graduate level to unique, highly motivated individuals. Our mission is to train the next generation of leaders and decision makers seeking to improve the health of the community through outstanding basic and clinical research. Major strengths include highly accomplished, well funded research faculty, multidisciplinary training opportunities, and cutting edge technologies.

Training consists of a sequence of required core courses, elective courses, journal clubs, faculty-directed research, and an original research project leading to a final thesis or dissertation. Students may select to in one of four Primary Tracks: medicinal chemistry, biochemical pharmacology, pharmaceutics, or clinical pharmaceutical sciences.

The PhD Program requires a minimum of 72 credits. For all graduate programs at the University of Pittsburgh the mimimum acceptable GPA is 3.0. No student may graduate with a GPA less than 3.0. Most students complete the PhD degree within five years. The statute of limitations for completion of the PhD degree is ten years. (See Statute of Limitation/Leaves of Absence in the University bulletin for more information.)