1:Avian Genomics Robin W. Morgan, Ph.D. Phone: (302) 831-1341 FAX: (302) 831- 3411
E-Mail: morgan@udel.edu
Web Site: http://ag.udel.edu/departments/anfs/faculty/morgan.htm Research
in this area is aimed at combating illness and improving production in
poultry by focusing on developing diagnostics, improving vaccines,
discovering new and emerging pathogens, and learning what mechanisms
dictate growth. In looking at disease, researchers are examining
host-pathogen interactions, immune mechanisms, immune system
development, innate disease resistance, immune suppression, viral
persistence, oncogenesis and interactions among disease agents. They
are tackling problems in poultry with combined conventional and
molecular approaches and using poultry genomics to uncover new genes
that may enhance health, growth and performance in this vital area of
the food supply.A
primary focus of this work is Marek’s disease, the most serious
infectious disease affecting the $11 billion global poultry industry.
This herpesvirus-induced lymphoma causes tumors in poultry at a cost of
$1 billion annually to producers. Although most chickens are inoculated
against the illness at or before hatch, Marek’s disease continually
mutates and becomes more virulent, countering the current vaccines and
imperiling the industry.Dr.
Robin Morgan, principal researcher and Dean of the University of
Delaware’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, leads a team
of scientists who are striving to understand how the Marek’s disease
virus alters T lymphocytes – white blood cells — in infected chickens.
Dr. Morgan’s group tackles three major areas in studying the disease
and its cure: The functions of viral gene products important in causing
the malignant tumors of Marek’s disease; latency and reactivation of
the virus; and critical virus-host cell interactions that influence the
development of these tumors and immunity against them. With their
partners in industry, Dr. Morgan’s group is helping to develop
next-generation vaccines that will ensure the freedom from the disease.In
recent months, Dr. Morgan’s laboratory has concentrated on mutants of
the virus that lack the latency-associated transcripts. Dr. Morgan has
described a family of latency-associated transcripts expressed in
tumors and lymphoblastoid cells derived from them. Current studies look
at the relationship between splicing patterns and possible transcript
functions. Latency is being compared among strains that differ in
virulence. The team uses microarray technology to investigate
host-virus cell interactions and they have been responsible for
identifying host cell genes induced upon Marek’s disease virus
infection.Along
with her colleague, Dr. Joan Burnside, a professor of animal and food
science at the University, Dr. Morgan is also analyzing the avian
genome, identifying DNA sequences that represent genes expressed in
chicken tissue. Dr. Burnside has taken advantage of high-throughput DNA
sequencing available through the Institute to build a publicly
available chicken expressed sequence tag (EST) database that can be
used in microarrays to profile immune system development. By analyzing
changes in these profiles, researchers hope to be able to maximize
immune responsiveness of chickens. Arrays are also used to identify
possible disease resistance genes.Dr.
Burnsides lab also looks at growth hormone regulation in poultry and
is credited with identifying and characterizing the hormone’s receptor
gene. Mutations of this gene in sex-linked dwarf chickens have been
found. Researchers are using the dwarf chicken as an experimental model
in the study of this growth 2: Biomedical ResearchMary C. Farach-Carson, Ph.D. Phone: (302) 831-2277 FAX: (302) 831-2281
E-Mail: farachca@udel.edu
Web Site: http://www.udel.edu/bio/people/faculty/mcfarach-carson.html The
biology of cancer development and work with genetically linked
illnesses are key focus areas for Delaware researchers. In the area of
cancer biology, Dr. Daniel Carson, Chair of the Department of
Biological Sciences, and a 2002 recipient of an NIH Merit Award, is
studying processes that occur both in healthy embryo development and in
the growth of a cancerous tumor. Following fertilization, embryos
develop to a stage at which they acquire the ability to bind to and
invade uterine tissue, reflecting an increase in the expression of
embryonic adhesion-promoting molecules. One class of these molecules is
heparan sulfate proteoglycans. Studies in both mouse and human model
systems indicate that proteoglycans and novel cell surface
proteoglycan-binding proteins support embryo-uterine interactions at
early stages of embryo attachment. Expression of both the proteoglycans
and their binding proteins persists through placental development and
plays an important role in cartilage development. Similar
proteoglycan-dependent interactions occur in a variety of tumor cell
lines, including those of breast, melanoma and prostate.Research
in Dr. Cindy Farach-Carsons laboratory centers on the biology and
biochemistry of bone cells and bone matrix. An area of emphasis is the
role of bone matrix in the progression of cancer following metastasis
from primary sites, such as the breast or prostate, to bone. In many
cases, primary tumors are fairly slow growing and do not become life
threatening until they form tumors in bone, where bone matrix growth
factors provide a rich environment to promote the growth of cancer
cells that invade. Dr. Farach-Carson is trying to identify and isolate
the growth factors responsible for cancer growth and progression, with
the long-term goal of developing "molecular drugs" to combat cancer
metastasis.Two
new prostate cancer researchers joined the cancer biology group in
2002, Dr. Carlton Cooper and Dr. Robert Sikes. Dr. Cooper is studying
how cancer spreads from its point of origin in the prostate to its
secondary site in bone. He is focused on what proteins, typically
called cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) are being used by the cancer cell
and the bone marrow endothelial cells to facilitate their interaction.
These CAMs could be targeted in early-stage prostate cancer to prevent
it from spreading to bone, where it can cause intense pain, spinal cord
compression, and which can lead to paralysis and bone fracture.Dr.
Robert Sikes prostate cancer research is focused in two related areas,
in distinguishing the cell types that develop into aggressive versus
slow-growing cancers, and in identifying novel compounds that will
inhibit cancer growth or its progression to a more aggressive form. He
and collaborators are now researching the effects of targeted small
molecule drugs in cancer cells to shrink tumors or to stop the
progression of cancer.In
a successful industry-university partnership, another area of research
applied to human health focuses on gene editing and repair that may
lead to a cure for a number of devastating hereditary diseases. Dr.
Eric Kmiec pioneered a gene editing technique in 1993 that is now being
employed broadly on a variety of living organisms. The group is making
rapid strides in their work with genes responsible for inherited
diseases, including Huntingtons Disease and Sickle Cell Anemia.Head
of the Laboratory of Applied Genomics at the University of Delaware,
Dr. Kmiec collaborates with his neighbors in the Delaware Biotechnology
Institute — NaPro BioTherapeutics, Inc. — on repairing the gene that
causes Huntingtons Disease, a fatal degenerative neurological disease
that afflicts one in seventy Americans and their families. Dr. Kmiec
and his team employ a variety of synthetic DNA vectors to cause
nucleotide changes in specific DNA sequences identified with the
disease. Through work with the Hereditary Disease Foundation, Dr. Kmiec
and his team are studying samples from a Venezuelan native tribe
devastated by endemic Huntingtons Disease.Dr.
Kmiec credits the rapid pace of developments to his ability to work
daily with talented scientists from both industry and academia who work
in the Institutes state-of-the-art laboratories. "The Institute has
allowed NaPro to come here and has given us the chance to work
together. The presence of NaPro allows us to see our work move into the
commercial field using the skills of their outstanding scientists,
while my university lab can remain fully committed to basic research."In
yet another area of human health research, new collaborations are
developing with Christiana Care Health Services, Delawares largest
health care provider. Christiana now leads an Academic Medicine Core
through the NIH NCRR IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence
(INBRE) grant to Delaware. The core is focused on innovative research
in biomedical imaging and in infrastructure to support expanded cancer
research in Delaware. Maciek R. Antoniewicz Assistant Professor Chemical Engineering
University of DelawarePhone: (302) 831-8960 Fax: (302) 831-1048 Email: mranton@udel.edu Computers
are a critical tool in todays biology. In the DBI community,
computational biology and bioinformatics research spans comparative
genomics, microarray and EST informatics, in-silico biological
structure and process modeling, immersive 3D visualization, and
high-performance bioinformatics instrumentation research using
massively parallel processing algorithms.Comparative genomics
researchers now benefit from having a growing collection of entire
genomes available for study. In the research group of Dr. Guang R. Gao,
Director of the DBI Bioinformatics Center, work is underway to refine
whole genome alignment and detection tools to find single nucleotide
polymorphisms (SNPs), the small but often influential variations among
individuals genetic material. Bioinformatics scientists in the group
are also developing innovative means display and interpret the enormous
amount of genome information visually by creating three-dimensional,
interactive "maps" to detect patterns within the data sets.
Contributing to an important direction in bioinformatics are the
computer (in silico) simulations of bioprocesses; these include
modeling of regulatory pathways, protein structure dynamics, and
developing genomic and proteomic databases that will serve as the
foundation for future modeling efforts.Mass spectroscopy and microarray
technologies generate large amounts of protein-relevant and gene
expression data, and the Institutes bioinformatics research is focused
on storing, clustering and classifying this information, and in
designing tools to link heterogeneous search and analysis software into
a smooth software pipeline.Dr. Guang Gao, Electrical and Computer
Engineering and Director of the Bioinformatics Center at DBI, is
applying his extensive knowledge in massively parallel computation to
solving bioinformatics problem. With Gaos Bioinformatics Group under the Computer Architecture and Parallel Systems Laboratory (CAPB),
the long-term research goal is to apply high-performance computing
technology to remove roadblocks in solving critical problems in
bioinformatics. Recognizing that a major challenge is providing
biologists with a smooth interactive solution platform for knowledge
discovery from large data sets, which, unfortunately, are grossly
incomplete and have a considerable amount of errors. CAPB consists of
researchers with strong computer engineering and computer science
backgrounds who are eager to collaborate with researchers from other
fields, and are dedicated to finding innovative solutions to meet the
above challenges. 4: Protein Structure and Function Because
proteins are fundamental components of all living cells, and are the
product of genetic instructions, there are few areas of biotechnology
that don’t depend on understanding their structure and function.
Deciphering their role and behavior has become critical in drug
discovery and in unlocking the mysteries of catastrophic diseases such
as cystic fibrosis, Alzheimer’s disease and mad cow disease – all of
which appear to be the result of irregular or improper folding when
proteins are being made.Dr.
Abraham Lenhoff leads a multi-investigator research project funded by
the National Institutes of Health to determine the structure and
function of key proteins of biomedical interest. For example, in
collaboration with Dr. Clifford Robinson, the team is working to
understand how proteins carry out their roles, how they interact with
other proteins and how their fundamental structure – or mistakes in
their structure — affect what they do. Lenhoff and Robinson’s research
is both fundamental to scientific knowledge and applied to improved
drug discovery and the cure of disease. Currently, Dr. Robinson’s work
is dedicated to unlocking the secrets of the largest “Super Family” of
proteins in humans called G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). These
proteins, implicated in a wide range of human diseases, affect cell
behavior by providing signals about the cell’s environment.
Consequently, these important proteins make excellent drug targets.
About half of all drugs on the market today interact with GPCRs, and
they are the targets for about 70 percent of all drug discovery.In
particular, Dr. Robinson’s team is focusing on two sub-families of
GPCRs, adenosine receptors and neurokinin receptors. The adenosine
receptors are implicated in cardiovascular disease and neurokinin
receptors have been connected to chronic pain. In particular, Dr.
Robinson’s team is focusing on two sub-families of GPCRs, adenosine
receptors and neurokinin receptors. The adenosine receptors are
implicated in cardiovascular disease and neurokinin receptors have been
connected to chronic pain. The Lenhoff team aims to
develop new
methods to determine the structures of these important classes of
proteins. New methods are needed, because GPCRs reside in the cellular
membrane; although 30% of the proteins in cells are membrane proteins,
they represent less that 1% of the proteins whose structure has been
determined experimentally.The
labs of Dr. John Koh, Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Dr. Mary
Farach-Carson, Biological Sciences, are collaborating understand
membrane receptors for the hormone Vitamin D. Certain individuals
suffer from a rare but ultimately fatal disease called Vitamin D
Resistant Rickets (VDRR), caused by a genetic mutation that results in
a defective Vitamin D receptor. The Koh lab uses sophisticated computer
modeling techniques to create ‘analog’ molecules that may function
correctly with the defective receptor. These molecules can then be
synthesized in the laboratory, in the hope of one day treating such
genetic diseases.Professors
Ulhas Naik, Biological Sciences, and Brian Bahnson, Chemistry and
Biochemistry are collaboratively working on a signaling protein in
human blood called calcium and integrin-binding protein, or CIB. Among
the newly discovered functions of CIB is its key role in the control of
blood clotting. As this work moves forward, the Naik lab has discovered
and characterized several medically exciting ‘partner’ proteins and
functions of CIB. Complementing this work, the Bahnson lab is currently
working toward solving the atomic structure of CIB and its
physiological partners.A
highly cross-disciplinary team is developing that includes Brian
Bahnson (Chemistry and Biochemistry), Guang Gao (Computer and
Electrical Engineering), Adam Marsh (Marine Studies), Anne Skaja
Robinson (Chemical Engineering), and Clifford Robinson (Chemistry and
Biochemistry) to study proteins from organisms that thrive under
extreme conditions. These organisms include those that live at
temperatures near the boiling point of water (in hot springs and
thermal vents deep in the ocean) near the freezing point (under the
Antarctic ice), and at very acidic conditions. The group aims to
understand how proteins from these organisms maintain their structure
and function under conditions where normal proteins would lose their
structure and become inactive, and how they can be expressed more
efficiently in large quantities. One of the their ultimate goals is to
use this information to produce proteins with enhanced stability and
durability, for industrial, biotech, and environmental applications. 5: Biomaterials John F. Rabolt, Ph.D. Phone: (302) 831-4476 FAX: (302) 831-4545
E-Mail: rabolt@udel.edu
Web Site: www.mseg.udel.edu/faculty_research/faculty_form.php?fnid=2 The
rapid advances in biotechnology that are fueling significant change in
medicine and agriculture have also become a major force in the chemical
and materials industries. These new discoveries are allowing
researchers to create and process materials that in turn provide better
tools for molecular biology.The
Institute provides an umbrella for the creation of these new
technologies and tools through an integrated approach to solving
problems and driving advances. In the newly developing area of
biomaterials, scientists from a variety of disciplines including
materials science and engineering, chemistry and biology come together
in new and diverse ways to produce innovative biomaterials for medical
materials, pharmaceutical, and bio-electronic applications. Current
areas of research include:  Biosurface modifications to promote or prevent protein absorption
Rapid separation and sensing of proteins Cell and tissue engineering Synthesis of new peptide and protein architectures that change conformation as a function of pH and temperature Integrated “lab-on-a-chip” devices for high-throughput screening and directed molecular evolution of enzymes Bio-optoelectronics
research, which brings optoelectronics and biology together to create
next-generation “smart” fiber optics, biosensors and DNA-based
transistors. Dr.
John Rabolt, Chair of the University of Delaware’s Department of
Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), is currently using
electrostatic forces to control the shape of polymers and protein
polymers to create nanofibers and nanowebs. To do this he and his
research group use an electronic spider than spins its own web
mimicking the process used by spiders found in nature. The new shapes
and morphologies produced by this electrospinning process are currently
under study for use as tissue scaffolds (in collaboration with Dr. Mary
Farach-Carson and Dr. Dan Carson of the Biology Department) and hence
are being investigated to see how cells respond, grow and proliferate
within them.A
veteran researcher who spent over 20 years in the IBM Research Division
and also served as Co-Director of the National Science Foundation’s
Center on Polymer Interfaces and Macromolecular Assemblies at Stanford
University, Dr. Rabolt understands the importance of both scientific
discovery and the application of science to industry. He feels that DBI
plays a critical role in bringing talented researchers together to
share ideas and by providing a “world-class” infrastructure and
resources for carrying out biomaterials research.Among
them is MSE member Dr. Kristi Kiick, who is designing macromolecules
capable of recognizing and interacting with cellular targets and also
is synthesizing genetically engineered materials to use in implants or
as tissue scaffolds. These materials can be used to promote or mediate
cell growth in a variety of ways, reducing inflammation and the growth
of malignant tissue. Dr. Kiick has also worked with Dr. Mary Galvin, a
member of the MSE Department, and a world-renowned researcher in
electronic materials, to use protein polymers as a template for
designing a new class of electroluminescent polymers for use in future
“plastic” computer displays.Another
member of MSE, Dr. Darrin Pochan, explores the rules that govern
molecular design and self-assembly of unique polymeric and
organic-inorganic hybrid materials. Taking advantage of the new
cell-culturing lab at DBI, Dr. Pochan tests the biological, cell and
tissue level properties of materials constructed for uses such as
tissue engineering. In other collaborative work with Dr. Joel Schneider
from the Department of Chemistry, new synthetic approaches to creating
model peptides may enable pharmaceuticals to be activated by
environmental cues at their delivery target in a specific organ or
malignancy, minimizing the potential damage and waste caused by
widespread dissemination in the body. |
