Department History

This era started when our medical school was founded. The most important tools in the arsenal of any physician comprise the pharmaceuticals that she/he is able to administer – this means you can’t have a medical school without a Pharmacology Department. When the University of Miami (UM) School of Medicine was founded, Dr. William Deichmann, a well-known toxicologist, was recruited as the first Chair of Pharmacology in 1953. Deichmann, a native of Kiel, Germany, came to the US permanently in 1924, and received his PhD in 1939 from the University of Cincinnati – the same university that years later recruited James Potter as an Associate Professor. Besides becoming a prominent member of the pharmacology community and authoring influential textbooks on toxicology, Deichmann shepherded the Department from its initial growing pains until 1970, recruiting faculty with research programs in cardiovascular pharmacology, membrane biophysics, and cancer chemotherapy. The very first students graduated from the nascent Pharmacology PhD program during these years.

The second Chair, Dr. Roger Palmer, was in the first graduating class of the University of Florida (UF) College of Medicine (1960). After a residency and a fellowship in Clinical Pharmacology & Medicine at Johns Hopkins, Palmer went back to UF as an assistant professor. He was recruited to the UM Pharmacology Department in 1969 and named Chair in 1970 at the tender age of 39. During this era, the Department’s research had a strong focus on cardiovascular pharmacology.  It was also during this time, in 1976, that the NIH/NHLBI T32 training grant in cardiovascular pharmacology was first funded. This grant was to run for 35 years! By the end of Palmer’s time, there were 16 faculty labs on the fourth floor of the Rosenstiel Medical Sciences Building (RMSB), including Arthur Bassett and Lincoln Potter, who directed the medical school classes in Pharmacology for many years. During this time the Pharmacology PhD program was graduating 1-2 students each year. Dr. Palmer and the faculty he recruited evidently lent a “Miami flair” to the Department, which was said to include at least one memorable occurrence of departmental “streakers” at a medical school lecture. Those were different days. Dr. Palmer stepped down as Chair in 1982, to start a private clinical practice on Key Biscayne and Lincoln Potter stepped in as interim Chair until 1983. 

Lots of things changed during these years. First, James Potter was appointed Chair in 1983 – like Roger Palmer, at the age of only 39. Having received a PhD from the University of Connecticut, Dr. Potter had served on the faculty at Baylor College of Medicine (1975-1977) and the University of Cincinnati (1977-1983) before coming to the Department. Potter was an expert on skeletal and cardiac muscle contraction and its regulation by calcium-dependent processes. Potter’s recruitment led to an increased focus on skeletal muscle in the Department’s research. Second, as a Chair for 25 years, Potter was able to recruit more than 20 faculty to the Department. This had a profound effect on the breadth of departmental research. While the 1970s and early 1980s featured a group whose research focused on the biochemistry and biophysics of muscle, and especially how calcium regulated these processes, Potter’s faculty recruits studied a dizzying array of phenomena related to cell signaling, including synapse function in parasympathetic ganglia, regulation of axon growth by extracellular matrix and cell adhesion molecules, structure and function of the choline acetyltransferase gene, structure and regulation of heterotrimeric G proteins and GPCRs, control of gene expression by glucocorticoid receptors, cyclic nucleotide gated channels in the eye, nucleoporins and nuclear transport, genetics and cell biology of yeast, and neuronal degeneration in the fly brain. With this change in research focus, the Department was renamed the Department of Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology (MCP). Finally, the Department moved from the fourth floor of RMSB to its current location on the sixth floor during this time, largely as a result of the need for increased faculty research space.

It was also during this period that the Department hosted its only (so far) Nobel laureate. Dr. Robert F. Furchgott, having achieved professor emeritus at SUNY downstate medical center, took up an adjunct professorship in our MCP department in 1989, which continued until 2004. Furchgott (with L.J. Ignarro and F. Murad) received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1998 for the discovery of nitric oxide and its effects on blood vessel relaxation.

Some things did not change much – Lincoln Potter and Art Bassett continued to lead an excellent medical education program in Pharmacology, and the Training Program in Cardiovascular Pharmacology, renamed the Training Program in Cardiovascular Signaling, continued to thrive with NHLBI support. Bassett took over as Director of the training program in 1985, and continued as Director until 2000. The PhD program in Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology continued to train excellent students, now graduating 4-5 PhD students each year.

Notably, Dr. Potter and his faculty recruits came (and continue) to leave a large impression on school and university by assuming key leadership posts: Jim Potter was a co-Director of the medical school’s Executive Office of Research Leadership for 3 years, and his recruits included Richard Bookman (Senior Associate Dean for Research – Medical School then Executive Dean for Research – Medical School and the University’s Vice Provost for Research), John Bixby (Senior Associate Dean for Research – Medical School; then Vice Provost for Research), Kerry Burnstein (Associate Director for Education and Training – Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center), Sandra Lemmon (Director of the MD/PhD program), and Grace Zhai (Senior Associate Dean for Basic Science Research – Medical School). Maybe there is something special about pharmacology.

After more than 25 years as Chair, Dr. Potter stepped down in 2008. Fortunately, Charles (Chuck) Luetje, who came to the Department in 1991, had served as departmental Vice Chair for the previous 4 years, and was ready and willing to step into the role as interim Chair. Dr. Luetje made a strong impression as interim Chair, and in 2010 was confirmed by the Dean as permanent Chair of the Department. Luetje, who received his PhD at the University of Washington, was a well-known neuropharmacologist whose research interests ranged from neuronal nicotinic receptor function to identification of natural ligands for olfactory receptors. With Lincoln Potter and Arthur Bassett having retired, Dr. Luetje was fortunately able to take over a large chunk of the medical student teaching in pharmacology. Despite turbulent times at the medical school, including the financial crunches of 2008 and 2012, Dr. Luetje steered the Department with a steady hand, and it prospered. Under Luetje the Department hired judiciously, adding faculty working in a broad array of model organisms (from yeast to humans) and with innovative research programs (such as protein arginylation in metabolic reprogramming), as well as faculty with broad interests in systems/computational biology, chemi-informatics and drug discovery. Although the Department’s research interests had now shifted from a focus on the cardiovascular system (as the 35-year run of the NHLBI Training Program had come to an end), the Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology PhD program continued to thrive under the leadership of Kerry Burnstein followed by Vlad Slepak. The new departmental research directions meant that MCP faculty were also making major contributions to interdisciplinary PhD programs like Neuroscience (which was directed in turn by MCP faculty John Bixby and Chuck Luetje) and Cancer Biology (which was directed by Kerry Burnstein), as well as the medical school-wide MD/PhD Program (with Sandra Lemmon succeeding Richard Bookman as Director). In due time, Dr. Lemmon was able to secure the medical school’s first NIGMS Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) grant, placing UM in elite company. All along the way, MCP has been fortunate to be supported by a stellar group of senior administrators including Rose Kirsch, Mercedes Nuñez, Tony Izquierdo and Carol Laracuente.

In 2018, Dr. Luetje stepped down as Chair (and retired from the University) after 10 years at the departmental helm. Once again, Dr. Potter’s ability to recruit top talent came to the Department’s rescue as Kerry Burnstein, who like Luetje had come to the Department in 1991, was able to step into the interim Chair’s role without missing a beat. Dr. Burnstein, a steroid receptor expert who received her PhD from the University of North Carolina, became best known for her observations on signaling and tumor progression in prostate cancer. She had honed her administrative skills first as Director of the PhD programs in Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, then as Associate Director for Education & Training of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. She was therefore an obvious choice to lead the Department after Dr. Luetje’s departure. Her abilities were recognized by medical school leadership, and in 2019, Burnstein was named the fifth permanent Chair of the Department. Despite an unprecedented year of remote work, research slowdowns, and dwindling research supplies caused by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Dr. Burnstein has been able to lead the recruitment of 3 new faculty to the Department, complementing its growing expertise in cancer biology and in small molecule drug discovery. The Department’s nearly 70 years of history have been fascinating and productive, and there is reason to believe that the future is even brighter.