The Department of Pharmacology at Zunyi Medical University was established by the Top-ranking Professor Zhang Yi in 1949 and moved from Dalian to Zunyi in 1969. Since 1982, Under the leadership of Professors Liu, Guo-Xiong, Huang, Xie-Nan, Sun, An-Sheng and Shi, Jing-Shan, the Department of pharmacology has made tremendous progress and achieved outstanding accomplishments.

It is the first approved University to recruit graduate students nationwide not only in 1955 but also in 1978. The Department was among the first to grant Master degree authorization in 1981. Since 2001, the Department co-trained doctoral graduate students with other universities, such as Chongqing Medical University and Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

The Department was firstly awarded the Key Discipline of Guizhou in 1992 and re-awarded in 2003. It was also firstly awarded Teaching Excellence of Guizhou in 2003 and re-awarded in 2009. In 2006, “the Key Lab of Basic Pharmacology of Guizhou” was established. The Department was named the first batch of Science and Technology Innovation Team of Guizhou in 2008 and Teaching Excellence Team in 2009. In 2013, it was approved to build the "Key Laboratory of Basic Pharmacology of the Ministry of Education", and at the beginning of 2017, it passed the acceptance of the Ministry of Education.

Currently, the laboratory has a high-level research team, including the innovation team of "Yangtze River Scholars and Innovation Team Development Plan", the scientific and Technological innovation team of Guizhou Province, the New Century Outstanding Talents Support Plan of the Ministry of Education. It is a world-class scientific research platform and training base for innovative talents.

The laboratory adheres to the applied basic research of traditional Chinese medicine and ethnic medicine, and combines basic and applied research, forming five research directions: neuro-pharmacology, cardiovascular pharmacology, pharmacokinetics and drug toxicology, anti-infection and anti-inflammatory drug pharmacology, and anti-tumor pharmacology, and has achieved remarkable results in the pharmacological research of traditional Chinese medicine and ethnic medicine.

The laboratory will continue to focus on traditional Chinese medicine and ethnic medicine in Guizhou Province as the main research object, focus on the efficacy and target of its active ingredients, and explore its metabolism and toxicity. Based on Guizhou province and facing the whole country, the laboratory will be built into a first-class research platform for traditional Chinese medicine and ethnic medicine and a training base for high-quality innovative and practical talents.