The program faculty are members of the Department of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences, the Brady Research Laboratories in the Division of Urology, and the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center. The Oncology Center is a regional resource dedicated to research and education in cancer and related disorders. The Center has a multidisciplinary faculty involved in treating tumor patients, as well as researching the cause, treatment, and prevention of malignant disease.

The required predoctoral course work is a series of rigorous core courses in Bio-organic Mechanisms, Biophysical Chemistry, Molecular Biology, Fundamentals of Genetics, and Biochemistry and Cell Biology, that is taken in the first year with graduate students in other predoctoral programs at the Medical Institutions. ACDD trainees receive additional instruction and exposure to pharmacology and oncology through the required Pharmacology and Therapeutics course taken with the medical school students in their second year, and through specialized elective courses, seminars, and journal clubs.

The ACDD postdoctoral training program provides outstanding candidates who have a Ph.D. or M.D. degree with the opportunity to focus their research interests, learn new experimental systems, and develop the skills required to succeed as an independent investigator. Postdoctoral trainees devote their full time to these objectives. Although there are no formal course requirements, all postdoctoral trainees in the Program participate regularly in Departmental and Institutional seminar programs, laboratory research meetings and journal clubs, the monthly ACDD noon research meeting, and the Oncology Center Fellows Day and Young Investigator's Day research symposia.

As rapid advances are made in understanding the molecular underpinnings of intracellular signaling pathways, growth control, and the regulation of gene expression, it is becoming increasingly important that strong interdisciplinary ties be formed between groups working at the cellular, molecular, and chemical fronts of cancer research. This program fosters such interactions and brings together the expertise of molecular and cell biologists, oncologists, and chemists, to provide an integrated, intellectually stimulating and challenging research training environment.