Research

Cardiovascular & Lipid Disorders

The Cardiovascular and Lipid Disorders Division of our Graduate Program is comprised of investigators that study several different areas of cardiovascular disease. Students can study the disease processes leading to heart disease, (the number one cause of death in men and women), the obesity epidemic, or developmental abnormalities caused by alterations in lipid metabolism.

Foci of study are varied and include studies of blood vessel walls, the liver, the intestine, adipose tissue, the brain, embryonic tissues, and cell culture models of each system.

These investigators approach these studies using a broad spectrum of technologies including, physical chemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, and whole animal physiology.

This well funded group of researchers receives support from a variety of organizations including NIH, the American Heart Association, and the USDA.

Digestive & Kidney Disease

The Digestive and Kidney Disease Division includes basic science, translational and clinical research programs. The Digestive group's research interests focus on understanding the pathogenesis viral hepatitis, improved treatments for viral hepatitis, bilirubin transport and physiology, reflux esophagitis, upper GI bleeding, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, peptic ulcer disease, and biliary lipid excretion/metabolism.

Our Nephrology group's specific areas of expertise include basic research in the fields of epithelial cell transport and biology, ischemia reperfusion injury, ion channels, hypoxia and vascular stenosis in the setting of hemodialysis vascular access dysfunction.

Division members are also active participants in a large number of clinical trials in the fields of renal and liver transplantation, chronic hepatitis, chronic kidney disease and lupus nephritis.

Endocrine & Metabolic Disorders

The research of the Endocrine and Metabolic Disorder Division of our Graduate Program centers on two primary disease processes, diabetes and thyroid dysfunction.

Students in this division have an opportunity to study a variety of metabolic pathways leading to these diseases states.

Hematology/Oncology

The Hematology/Oncology Division of the Graduate Program has faculty who offer outstanding research opportunities to graduate students. Areas of investigation in oncology include the development and testing of anti-tumor vaccines, translational studies in breast cancer, and the role of cytokines in prostate cancer.

In hematology, laboratories focus on the biology of sickle cell disease and the impact of hematological variables on diabetes. The investigators in this well-funded Division are national leaders in their research areas, and publish regularly in first line journals.

The research ranges from basic studies of tumor biology to translational investigations with direct application to human disease.

Immunology & Infectious Diseases

The Immunology & Infectious Diseases Division of the Graduate Program is comprised of investigators that have developed international recognition for outstanding research in medical mycology, opportunistic infections and host immune responses.

Graduate students may elect to perform their thesis work in a laboratory that focuses on the molecular and cellular aspects of pathogenesis in a specific organism, or in a lab that studies host immune responses and their relevance to the control of infection and disease.

Organisms of interest include the human eukaryotic pathogens Histoplasma capsulatum, Pneumocystis spp and Aspergillus fumigatus.