Introduction
The Department belongs to the Institute of Biomedicine and is located in one of the main buildings of the Turku University Medical Faculty, Medisiina building (Campus map number T30, floors C5 and B6, Kiinamyllynkatu 10). The Department is responsible for the teaching of basic physiology for medical students and students of the degree program in health biosciences (http://www.utu.fi/med/tdk/tbio/english/index.html) and it organizes elective courses for medical students interested in molecular and cellular endocrinology, reproductive biology, nutrition, neurophysiology, and in collaboration with Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine a course in cardiorespiratory medicine. The Department also contributes to the teaching for the four-term biomedical research track for medical students. Some of the regular obligatory core and elective courses are fit for European Course Credit Transfer System (ECTS; http://www.utu.fi/med/tdk/curriculum.htm) for medical exhange students from all EU countries.
The Department has a strong tradition in post-graduate training of Ph.D. students with a background of both medicine and natural sciences. "The Research Program on Male Reproductive Health" is the main research program of the Department, and it was one of the centers of excellence in research, nominated by the Academy of Finland for the period of 2002-2007. Other research activities include physiology of pain, sleep research, and physiology and pathophysiology of reactive oxygen. Students are welcomed to be trained in the expert research groups.
The personnel of Department include three professors, one assistant professor, one senior assistant, five assistants and many technical personnel. In addition, the personnel of the Department involve a large group of scientists at senior and post-doctoral levels and several Ph.D. students with the background of medicine or natural sciences. The laboratory is well equipped for molecular and cellular biology research, and the Department is largely responsible for maintaining the laboratory facifities for the Turku Center for Disease Modeling (www.tcdm.fi).