Research activities at the School of Medicine have begun early during the last century, with the outstanding work on pituitary physiology by Bernardo Houssay. Houssay was designated as the first full time Professor of the UBA and chief of the Department of Physiology in 1919, and succeeded in developing an internationally competitive Research Institute from which remarkable contributions have been done in the field of endocrinology and cardiovascular physiology by Houssay and his colleagues, notably, Virgilio Foglia, Juan Carlos Fasciolo and Eduardo Braun Menendez, among others. Houssay was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1947.

Research activities at the Institute of Physiology were severely affected during the last dictatorship to the point that it lost institutional category during the eighties. During the last decades, research at the Department of Physiology and Biophysics has regained international reputation, with groups making relevant contributions in the fields of trans-membrane transport, pathophysiology of gastrointestinal and kidney diseases, and neuroscience.

To honor a tradition of excellence research in the physiological sciences, the current staff of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics has proposed the (re) creation of the Institute of Physiology and Biophysics "Bernardo Houssay". The new Institute has the following aims:

- to foster research and human resources development in the fields of Physiology and Biophysics, with an emphasis on improving health care in Argentina

- to feed the Department of Physiological Sciences with high quality Professors, with the ultimate aim of improving graduate and postgraduate teaching activities at the School of Medicine

- to promote educational and translational activities with direct impact in the quality of life in our country