Why Conduct Research as a Pharmacy Student?

These are valuable opportunities to:

• Contribute to the ever-changing scientific body of knowledge that improves care for our patients.
• Gain skills that facilitate career trajectory into clinical practice, academia, and industry roles.
• Enhance your collaborative network.
• Present your research through College-funded opportunities in both regional and national forums.

Midwestern University’s College of Pharmacy, Downers Grove Campus offers you various opportunities to learn about and participate in extra-curricular research studies with faculty members.

Research opportunities range from traditional bench research in a laboratory, to clinical research both on and off campus. Participation is “hands on” and may include a variety of activities such as experimental conduct, literature reviews, data collection, data analysis, and presentation of research findings.

Portions of the pharmacy curriculum will introduce you to the various aspects of formal scientific research. If you wish to engage in bench research, additional training is provided and required.

Research Options

Participation in research is welcomed and encouraged as a means to better understand the dynamics of patient care. If you have an interest in participating outside of your pharmacy coursework, there are multiple options for you:

Elective Credit - You may opt to do an independent study research course mentored by a faculty member, where you may receive elective credit of one to two hours per quarter.

Federal Work Study - You may work with faculty as a Research Assistant through the Federal Work Study (FWS) Program. To qualify for this, you must have a FAFSA form on file with the Office of Student Financial Services and select “Yes” to question #31.

Volunteer – If you are interested in simply getting familiar with how research works, you may volunteer to assist faculty in their research endeavors, where no elective credit, FWS earnings, or stipend funds are received. This involvement is a good learning experience and often leads to more formal participation.

Faculty’s Areas of Research

Our faculty are experts in their fields and involved in numerous areas of pharmacy research. To learn more, review our pharmacy faculty’s research areas listed next to each of their names at Our Faculty.

In addition, several pharmacy faculty comprise the Pharmacometrics Center of Excellence that partners a strong faculty knowledge base in computer modeling of drug efficacy and toxicity with wet-lab analytic approaches. This group is highly expert in conducting pre-clinical through post-marketing studies. Their work is regularly featured in peer-reviewed research publications, and they train many pharmacy students in cutting-edge scientific research each year.