Speaker Information and Research Interests
Richard Gallo, M.D., Ph.D.
University of California- San Diego
Richard L. Gallo, M.D., Ph.D. is currently professor and chief of the Division of Dermatology at the University of California at San Diego. Dr. Gallo is a leading investigator in the field of skin research, specifically, the innate molecular mechanisms of epithelial defense and repair. The lab studies antimicrobial peptides and the interaction of skin with the immune system.
Skin makes natural antibiotic molecules known as Cathelicidins. Cathelicidins inhibit molecular function by targeting microbial membranes, working with host pattern recognition receptors to stimulate cellular immune defense. Methods such as gene targeting and molecular analysis used by the Gallo laboratory have shown cathelicidins are critical to mammalian immunity and are associated with human disease.
The Gallo laboratory is responsible for the first description of an antimicrobial peptide in mammalian skin, the first demonstration that mammals depend on microbial peptides for defense against infection, and the first association of a human disease with a defect in antimicrobial peptide production. Dr Gallo is well-respected in his field and has had his work featured in Nature and The New England Journal of Medicine.
Douglas Golenbock, M.D.
University of Massachussetts Medical School
Douglas Golenbock, M.D. is a professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and also serves as chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology. He is also currently affiliated with the UMASS Center for AIDS Research and the Program in Immunology and Virology.
Golenbock’s research focuses on toll receptors, sepsis and malaria. A principal goal of the Golenbock laboratory is to characterize the receptors used by phagocytic leukocytes. These receptors detect and initiate a response to microbial products resulting in acute and chronic inflammatory diseases including septic shock, pyogenic pneumonia, fatal viral infections and malaria.
A major research area in the laboratory is the effect of bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and the study of its receptors including LPS binding proteins (LPB) and CD14. LPS is a major component of the outer membrane of gram-negative bacteria and the lab has helped define the receptor complex TLR4/MD-2 as a central LPS recognition molecule.
Approaches taken by the Dr. Golenbock are providing new insights into the molecular basis of infectious illness, as well as a variety of sterile inflammatory illnesses.
Sergio Grinstein, Ph.D.
Toronto Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute
Sergio Grinstein, Ph.D. is the Pitblado Chair in Cell Biology in the Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute and a professor of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. Dr. Grinstein has been an international research scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a Medical Research Council of Canada distinguished scientist and is currently a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
The Grinstein laboratory is internationally recognized for cell biology work in two major areas currently under study. The first investigates the molecular mechanisms utilized by leukocytes to eliminate infectious organisms. Specifically, the lab is interested in the processes whereby macrophages and neutrophils migrate to the sites of infection, ingest microbes and destroy them.
The second major research focus in the Grinstein laboratory is the regulation of ion transport and pH of intracellular compartments. The lab has devised means of measuring the pH and ionic composition of organelles within live cells through development of molecular probes and imaging techniques. Currently, the lab is investigating the identity and properties of the molecules responsible for ionic regulation.
- Dr. Grinstein's Hospital for Sick Children Researcher Profile
- Dr. Grinstein's University of Toronto Profile
Cynthia Kenyon , Ph.D.
University of California- San Francisco
Cynthia Kenyon graduated valedictorian in chemistry and biochemistry from the University of Georgia in 1976. She received her Ph.D. from MIT in 1981, where, in Graham Walker's laboratory, she was the first to look for genes solely on the basis of their expression profiles, discovering that DNA damaging agents activate a battery of DNA repair genes in E. coli. During postdoctoral studies with Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, U.K., she investigated the development of C. elegans. Since 1986 she has been at the University of California, San Francisco, where she was the Herbert Boyer Distinguised Professor and is now an American Cancer Society Professor. Dr. Kenyon has received many honors and awards for her findings. She is a member of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine and she is a past president of the Genetics Society of America. She is now the director of the Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging at the University of California, San Francisco.
Charles Serhan, Ph.D.
Harvard University Medical School
Dr. Charles Serhan is the Simon Gelman Professor of Anesthesia (Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology) at Harvard Medical School and is professor in the Department of Oral Medicine, Infection and Immunity at Harvard School of Dental Medicine. Dr. Serhan also holds an affiliate faculty appointment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is the Director of the Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Serhan’s research focuses on acute inflammation and on the structural elucidation of pathways and compounds with protective mechanisms operating in humans that prevent injury of the body’s own tissue and promote resolution. The overall goal of research in the Serhan Laboratory is to understand the cellular and biochemical pathways involved in resolution and anti-inflammation so that the level of inflammation, its duration and pain associated with a wide range of diseases and injuries may be better controlled.
To date, the Serhan laboratory has elucidated four novel molecular mechanisms and endogenous receptor ligand interactions that are used in vivo to dampen inflammatory responses. Through this work, the lab has developed therapeutic approaches using these structures as biotemplates. With this better understanding of biochemical signaling pathways, new drugs being developed could be more potent and better tolerated since they are based on structures of endogenous natural compounds.