The Experimental Pharmacology Laboratory at the University of Cyprus (UCY) Medical School, founded in 2016, is the only laboratory for drug discovery and drug repurposing currently in Cyprus. The lab is using various in vitro and in vivo (zebrafish) models for molecular, toxicological and behavioural assessment of drug efficacy & potency, in high- and mid-throughput screening mode against various targets implicated in chronic diseases. The lab focuses on the exploration of the pharmacological characterization of drugs on selected molecular targets and organism behaviour in zebrafish. The zebrafish is the ideal animal model for a variety of screenings in drug toxicity & drug efficacy, since it offers many advantages that favour in vivo high/mid-throughput screening, such as ultra-low cost, short experimental times,  body transparency for non-invasive observation & imaging, small size for mass study, high genomic homology with humans, easy model manipulation etc.

They apply a 96-well plate format for in vivo screenings using a large library of clinical drugs to assess a variety of endpoints, in order to discover new pharmacological/therapeutic properties against a number of chronic diseases, such as cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and cardiovascular diseases.