LMU München Walther-Straub-Institut

The Walther Straub Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology belongs to the theoretical research institutes of the Faculty of Medicine. The focus of the institute lies on teaching of students of medicine and dental medicine as well as life sciences.

Basic pharmacology seeks to understand how drugs work, to discover new therapeutic targets and to provide suitable biological read out systems for testing of new substances. By its very nature, pharmacology and toxicology are truly interdisciplinary and contribution of specialists of many other disciplines are required.

As in many other biomedical disciplines the boundaries of pharmacology and toxicology are not sharply defined. Thus, it is the scientific purpose, to understand how xenobiotics influence living organisms and how their effects can be translated to therapeutic principles or to prevention of toxicological outcomes, which unites pharmacologists and toxicologists rather than specific conceptual and technical coherence.