The department of Chemical Physiology and Biochemistry emphasizes a chemical biology approach to the study of systems physiology. The distinctive mind-set of our faculty can be summed up as a desire to study cellular and molecular events in the context of the whole animal. To do this we have created a research environment in which physiologists and chemical biologists team up to create new chemical tools for probing specific signaling pathways and mechanisms in whole animal models. We believe that connecting systems physiology with cutting edge chemical biology is a powerful way to distinguish the roles of multiple inter-connected processes in vivo and is key to developing new therapeutics in the 21st century.