Faculty

DBBS mentors and educators are key to our training mission. Those who serve as primary mentors are DBBS Program Members, and others who participate in the educational mission are General Members. Learn about DBBS Faculty Membership »

To provide a supportive learning environment for our trainees, many DBBS-affiliated faculty have completed eight or more hours of CIMER-based mentorship training with a trained facilitator, as indicated below with a profile badge.

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Find faculty of interest by entering a name, program or expertise keyword in the search bar; selecting a PhD program from the drop-down menu; or selecting the last name initial from the A-Z filter.

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Mark Conradi, PhD

Professor Emeritus

Program affiliation
General

Research summary
Use hyperpolarized helium-3 and xenon-129 diffusion MRI to characterize lung microstructure

Key words
helium-3, NMR, MRI, hyperpolarized, gas MRI, lungs, emphysema, COPD

John Cooper, MD, PhD

Professor

Program affiliation
General

Research summary
Molecular mechanisms of cell motility and cytoskeleton assembly

Key words
cell motility, cytoskeleton, actin, intermediate filament, microtubules, septin, cell migration

Jonathan Cooper, PhD

Professor

Program affiliation
Neurosciences
Molecular Genetics and Genomics
Developmental Regenerative and Stem Cell Biology
Computational and Systems Biology

Research summary
Disease mechanisms and treatments for inherited childhood neurodegeneration

Key words
Batten Disease, Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis, NCL, Lysosomal Storage Disease, pathogenesis, pre-clinical therapies, enzyme replacement, gene therapy

Megan Cooper, MD, PhD

Anthony R. French, MD, PhD, Professor

Program affiliation
Immunology
Human and Statistical Genetics

Research summary
The Cooper laboratory is focused on investigating the molecular and immunologic basis of inborn errors of immunity. We are particularly interested in understanding novel genetic causes of these diseases in children with immune dysregulation syndromes.

Key words
inborn errors of immunity, genetics, primary immunodeficiency STAT3, TLR8, Pediatrics

Bryan Copits, PhD

Assistant Professor

Program affiliation
Neurosciences
Developmental Regenerative and Stem Cell Biology
Biochemistry Biophysics and Structural Biology
Molecular Genetics and Genomics

Research summary
We study how different types of neurons encoding somatosensory modalities are assembled into functional circuits in both humans and model organisms.

Key words
pain, optogenetics, imaging, electrophysiology

Joseph Corbo, MD, PhD

Professor

Program affiliation
Molecular Genetics and Genomics
Neurosciences
Developmental Regenerative and Stem Cell Biology
Computational and Systems Biology

Research summary
(1) transcriptional networks in the retina; (2) the mechanistic basis of color vision; (3) the cis-regulatory basis of human uniqueness and neuropsychiatric disease

Key words
neurobiology, genomics, transcriptional networks, systems biology, photoreceptors, brain, neuropsychiatric disease, disease, cis-regulation

Richard Cote, MD

Professor and Head of the Department of Pathology and Immunology

Program affiliation
Immunology
Cancer Biology

Research summary
Pathways of tumor progression and response to therapy, particularly in bladder and prostate cancer, cancer metastasis research through analysis of lymph node and bone marrow occult metastases

Key words

Douglas Covey, PhD

Professor

Program affiliation
Biochemistry Biophysics and Structural Biology
Neurosciences

Research summary
Medicinal chemistry of steroids

Key words
cholesterol, ion channel, medicinal chemistry, neurobiology, pharmacology, steroids

Kevin Cox Jr, PhD

Assistant Professor

Program affiliation
Plant and Microbial Biosciences

Research summary
Our research centers around studying spatial biology, or the spatial organization of genes, in plant systems. We investigate this through two research areas; plant-microbe interactions and duckweed biology.

Key words
plant biology; transcriptomics; spatial biology; imaging; molecular biology

Meaghan Creed, PhD

Associate Professor

Program affiliation
Neurosciences

Research summary
Leveraging synaptic physiology to treat addiction and affective symptoms of pain

Key words
electrophysiology, deep brain stimulation, dopamine, basal ganglia, reward and aversion, addiction, genetics, pharmacology, optogenetics, pain

Sharon Cresci, MD

Associate Professor

Program affiliation
Human and Statistical Genetics
Computational and Systems Biology
Molecular Genetics and Genomics

Research summary
Genetic variation in the variable response to pharmacologic treatment (i.e. Pharmacogenomics) of cardiovascular disease; specifically individuals with both diabetes mellitus and coronary artery disease.

Key words
cardiovascular disease, diabetes melitus, genotype, genetic variation

Clair Crewe, PhD

Assistant Professor

Program affiliation
Molecular Cell Biology
Biochemistry Biophysics and Structural Biology

Research summary
Understanding extracellular vesicle (EV)-mediated signaling during homeostatic and pathologic metabolic regulation

Key words

Erika Crouch, PhD, MD

Professor

Program affiliation
Biochemistry Biophysics and Structural Biology
Developmental Regenerative and Stem Cell Biology
Molecular Cell Biology

Research summary
Structure and function of surfactant protein D (SP-D)

Key words
biochemistry, carbohydrate, gene expression, immunology, lipids

Carlos Cruchaga, PhD

Barbara Burton & Reuben Morriss III Professor

Program affiliation
Human and Statistical Genetics
Neurosciences
Biomedical Informatics and Data Science
Molecular Genetics and Genomics

Research summary
The goal of my lab is to understand the biology of neurodegeneration by using high-dimensional omic data and functional genomic approaches.

Key words
Neurodegeneration, Alzheimer, genetics, genomics, proteomics, system biology, molecular phenotyping, functional genomics

Jianmin Cui, PhD

Professor on the Spencer T. Olin Endowment

Program affiliation
Biochemistry Biophysics and Structural Biology
Neurosciences

Research summary
Molecular basis of bioelectricity and related diseases in nervous and cardiovascular systems; ion channel function and modulation; discovery of drugs that target ion channels

Key words
allosteric regulation, calcium, drug mechanisms, epilepsy, ion channel, structure-function analysis

Joseph Culver, PhD

Sherwood Moore Professor

Program affiliation
Neurosciences

Research summary
Non-invasive optical measurements for both functional- and molecular- biological imaging

Key words

David Curiel, MD, PhD

Professor

Program affiliation
Molecular Microbiology and Microbial Pathogenesis
Molecular Genetics and Genomics
Immunology
Developmental Regenerative and Stem Cell Biology

Research summary
To address the central mandate of gene therapy we engineer adenovirus tropism to allow the achievement of effective gene delivery

Key words
Adenovirus, virotherapy, virus, cancer, gene therapy, vaccine

Yifan Dai, PhD

Assistant Professor

Program affiliation
Biochemistry Biophysics and Structural Biology
Neurosciences
Molecular Microbiology and Microbial Pathogenesis
Molecular Cell Biology

Research summary
My lab aims to establish the fundamental principles of intracellular physical chemistry and electrochemical functions of macromolecular complexes, and design synthetic proteins as therapeutics for condensate-dependent diseases.

Key words
molecular biology; physical chemistry; biochemistry; biophysics; synthetic biology; electrochemistry; phase transition; condensates

Zhiyu Dai, PhD

Associate Professor

Program affiliation
Molecular Cell Biology
Developmental Regenerative and Stem Cell Biology
Molecular Genetics and Genomics

Research summary
My research aims to understand the lung vascular homeostasis and the pathogenesis of pulmonary diseases using novel animal models, integrated pharmacological approaches, genome editing and single cell RNA-sequencing and spatial transcriptomics.

Key words
cardiovascular, lung, vascular, single cell, spatial transcriptomic

Mai Dang, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor

Program affiliation
Neurosciences
Cancer Biology
Immunology

Research summary

Key words

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