Faculty Research in Molecular and Cellular Biology

Randall Barbour, Optical tomographic imaging methods for the evaluation of tissue function.

Peter J. Bergold, Analysis of the pathophysiology of neuronal disorders.

Mohamed Boutjdir, Autonomic regulation of native and heterologously expressed ion channels, intracellular signaling, arrhythmias during ischemia and hypertrophy. Molecular and cellular mechanisms of Congenital Heart Block in infants born to mothers with autoimmune diseases. Electrophysiological and molecular biological techniques are used.

Janice Brissette, Development and diseases of the skin. Mechanisms by which cells create and regenerate tissues, develop and function as units, terminate tissue development, and prevent uncontrolled growth.

William J. Chirico, Biogenesis of angiogenic factors and their role in cardiovascular disease and cancer. Mechanism of chaperone-dependent protein folding and translocation into organelles.

David Christini, Study of cardiac myocyte electrophysiology and its implications on arrhythmia – primarily using induced pluripotent stem-cell derived cardiomyocytes and tools ranging from automated patch clamp to computational modeling.

John Danias, Gene expression and gene therapy in glaucoma; neuroprotection; neuroregeneration

Ballabh Das, Biology of interaction between cytolytic lymphocytes and tumor cells with particular interest in naïve natural killer cells function. Additionally, the role of immune cells in sustainability of solid organ graft after transplantation.

Miriam H. Feuerman, Identification of genes regulating gene expression during liver regeneration. These genes may be important for susceptibility to liver tumorigenesis in both mice and humans.

Robert Foronjy seeks to decipher the basic mechanisms of lung disease like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). His laboratory studies how depletion of the RNA binding protein HuR in the airway epithelium alters the transcriptome to promote the onset and progression of COPD.

Itsaso Garcia-Arcos, Lipid and lipoprotein metabolism. Molecular mechanisms of lipid metabolism in the pathogenesis of adult pulmonary disease. Crosstalk between systemic and pulmonary lipids. Lipid transporters and cellular uptake. 

Patrick Geraghty, Studying the immune responses in disease lungs and the subsequent impact on lung physiology. In particular, investigating the role of protein phosphatase 2A and the damage associate molecular pattern protein, S100A9.

Gregory G. Gick, Molecular mechanisms underlying regulation of mammalian Na, K-ATPase subunit gene expression in response to hormones and ionic stimuli.

Raavi Gupta, Hematopoietic neoplasms including myelodysplastic syndrome and biology of cancer in different ethnic populations.

Christopher U. Hellen, Defining the mechanism of initiation of protein synthesis by characterizing roles of eukaryotic initiation factors (eIFs) in each stage of this process. Research into the canonical initiation mechanism used by most cellular mRNAs is complemented by analysis of non-canonical initiation mechanisms used by viral mRNAs.

Ellen Hsu, Molecular mechanisms involved in the generation of antibody diversity and the evolution and role of DNA rearrangement and somatic hypermutation in vertebrates.

Jared Jagdeo, MD, MS is a board-certified dermatologist, and holds joint appointments in both Dermatology and Molecular and Cell Biology with research focused on photomedicine, aesthetics, fibrosis, inflammation, skin cancer and pre-cancer in pre-clinical, translational and clinical models.

Ira S. Kass, Mechanisms of hypoxic and ischemic neuronal damage. Of particular interest are the cellular electrophysiologic, biochemical and molecular biological changes that occur during ischemia and how anesthetics and other pharmaceutical agents influence these changes.

Richard Kollmar, Molecular genetics of otolith formation in the zebrafish. Regeneration of the recurrent laryngeal nerve in the rat.

Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis, Molecular evolution of infectious disease systems; phylogenomics; genome evolution; co-infection dynamics; vectorborne diseases; population biology; microbiome; Lyme disease, tuberculosis, Staphylococcus, emerging infectious diseases, hospital-acquired infections.

Christopher S. Lange, Cellular radiation lethality in terms of DNA DSB rejoining/repair kinetics. Chromosome structure - DNA/chromatin organization; physical chemical/biophysical methods for DNA/chromatin size measurement. Bystander effects. Tumor and normal tissue radio- and chemo-sensitivity assays. The cellular basis of organismal radiation lethality and aging.

Laura Martello-Rooney, Molecular basis of pancreatic cancer; Novel drug delivery tool for pancreatic cancer; Colon cancer, inflammation and the microbiome; Cancer health disparities.

Eduardo Mascareno, Identification and characterization of common molecular networks observed in chronic diseases such as obesity and hypertension that contribute to the progression of cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, myocardial ischemia, cardiomyopathy and heart failure. Development of genetics strategies to generate negative dominant genes that inhibit prostate cancer and lung cancer growth.

Allen J. Norin, Role of the novel gene, "HAYMAKER", in growth and differentiation of normal and malignant cells. Receptor-ligand interactions involved in cytolytic lymphocyte destruction of tumor cells and organ grafts.

Yosefa Pessin, Study of diagnostic medical ultrasound imaging methods evaluating human anatomy and pathologic states. Projects include sonographic imaging, teaching techniques, and simulation studies.

Tatyana Pestova, Mechanism of initiation of eukaryotic protein synthesis.

Matthew R. Pincus, Oncogenesis, oncoprotein structure, mitogenic signal transduction, design of anti-cancer agents.

Prem Premsrirut, Pioneering next-generation technologies such as RNA interference and CRISPR/Cas gene editing to develop organoid and animal model systems. We use these human disease models to study genetic drivers of cancer and identify potential novel therapeutic strategies. 

Edward V. Quadros, Molecular, genetic and biochemical aspects of Vitamin B12 metabolism. Purification and cloning of vitamin B12 binding proteins and their receptors. Transcobalamin II and the receptor for Transcobalamin II-Cobalamin as targets for new cancer therapeutics.

Christopher A. J. Roman, The molecular biology of lymphocyte development and renal cancer. We study transcription factors and cell-surface receptors that are essential for the immune response, and whose dysregulation and/or mutation underlie multiple human pathologies including autoimmune disease, immune deficiency, allergy/asthma, and cancer. Experimental approaches include genetically modified mice as models for human disease.

Todd C. Sacktor, Protein kinase C isozymes, PKMζ, long-term potentiation, long-term depression, synaptic plasticity, hippocampus, learning and memory.

Frank R. Scalia, Development of the visual system and regeneration of the optic nerve.

Haseeb A. Siddiqi, Host-parasite interactions, and mechanisms of pathogenesis and immunity in schistosomiasis; reproductive biology of schistosomes and mechanisms of chemoattraction in schistosome males and females; immune regulation in schistosomiasis and in sepsis; cytokines in infection and in local tissue injury

Sheryl S. Smith, Investigation of neurosteroid effects on GABA-A receptor plasticity and its relevance for altered hippocampal physiology, as well as anxiety and epilepsy.

Gladys N. Teitelman, Cellular and molecular analysis of pancreatic islet cell differentiation; isolation of insulin precursor cells and characterization of the signals that control their maturation.

Henri Tiedge, Regulation of neuronal gene expression; RNA transport in neurons; mechanisms of local protein synthesis; long-term synaptic plasticity; Alzheimer's disease; tumor biology.

Rajendra Wadgaonkar, Gene function study on a molecular and cellular level using several vascular injury models, including pulmonary artery ligation, endotoxin induced sepsis and lung injury models. We are studying several pathways, including endothelial sphingolipid signaling, apoptosis and NFkB dependent inflammatory and survival pathways during vascular injury.

Michael A. Wagner, Molecular mechanisms underlying neurogenesis in early vertebrate development. The role of tumor suppressor genes in early events of cardiogenesis and neurogenesis.

Ming Zhang, Innate immunity and ischemia, reperfusion (I/R) injury. Animal models of I/R injury; clinical research of I/R injury in cardiovascular diseases and transplant rejection.