Academics

Graduate Program

The UCHC Center for Vascular Biology offers outstanding opportunities for research training in the rapidly evolving field of vascular biology. The Center is the focal point for vascular research at the Health Center and fosters interactions among investigators throughout UCHC who study cancer, cardiovascular biology, and other diseases and biological mechanisms involving the vascular system.

The spectrum of research in the Center is a unique integration of diverse aspects of vascular biology using biochemical, molecular, cellular, proteomic, and imaging approaches to investigate the mechanisms of signal transduction, gene regulation, apoptosis, endothelial cell function, and vascular cell-cell interactions in vitro as well as in vivo models of vascular development, angiogenesis, tumorigenesis, metastasis, and cardiovascular disease. This interdisciplinary focus offers students a diverse range of innovative technologies at all levels. Through an outstanding series of seminars, formal and informal courses, biweekly research-in-progress sessions, and journal clubs, graduates of this program are well prepared for careers in biomedical research and education in the academic, biotechnology, or pharmaceutical fields.

The Center's faculty is primarily members of the Cell Biology Graduate Program, one of the multidisciplinary areas of concentration at UCHC. Specific information on the program, its requirements, and current students can be found at Cell Biology Graduate Program's website.

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Post Doctoral Training

Post-Doctoral Training in the Center for Vascular Biology is available in individual laboratories within a multi-disciplinary and interactive environment with primary areas of interest in Vascular Biology, Angiogenesis, Signal Transduction, Proteomics, RNA Biology, Cell Biology. The ongoing research extends from endothelial lipid receptors, mechanisms of apoptotic cell engulfment in vascular lesions, developmental vascular biology, hypoxia-mediated control of angiogenic factor expression and the role of peptidases in pathological angiogenesis.

The fellows are funded through individual research and training grants. The focus is to foster Post-Doctoral career development through training in methodologies, research experimental design and interpretation, hypothesis development and testing, grant and manuscript writing, interaction with students and technical personnel in collaborative research, data and oral presentation skills. Fellows have easy access to a wide graduate and medical/dental school curriculum in the form of audit courses and superb research seminars ranging from Vascular Biology to other programs including Immunotherapy, Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunology, Neurobiology and Molecular Medicine. Post-Doctoral fellows are encouraged to present work in at least one national meeting per year and present at the internal Center for Vascular Biology seminar meetings held twice a month.

The center is housed in a state-of-the-art research building with excellent centralized core facilities for MS/MS protein sequencing, histology, flow cytometry and sorting, electron microscopy, microarray and a world-class imaging core (CBIT link).

Stipends are based upon years of experience and are modeled along the NIH guidelines. Full health insurance benefits are covered.

Faculty and Topics

1. Timothy Hla, Ph.D, Director
   Role of EDG/S1P receptors in endothelial biology and lipid mediators modulated by COX-2 in breast cancer progression.
   
2. Kevin Claffey, Ph.D
   Mechanisms of hypoxia-induced VEGF expression via mRNA stability and role in tumor progression and angiogenesis.
   
3. Ann Cowan, Ph.D
   Advanced imaging applications to cell biology, computational cell biology tools and image reconstruction.
   
4. Fernando Ferrer, MD
5. Christine Finck, MD
6. Guo-Hua Fong, Ph.D
   Role of VEGF receptors and hypoxia-mediated transcription factors in developmental vasculogenesis using genetic mouse models.
   
7. Henry Furneaux, Ph.D
   The regulation of gene expression by microRNAs.
   
8. David Han, Ph.D
   Proteomic and bioinformatics approaches to vascular remodeling and apoptotic cell engulfment.
   
9. Joel Pachter, Ph.D
   The mechanisms by which leukocytes and pathogens invade the central nervous system.
   
10. Linda Shapiro, Ph.D
    Cell surface peptidases and their role in tumor and adaptive cardiac angiogenesis.

Past Post Doctoral Fellows

Open Positions

No current positions are available at this time. To check for availability of an opening visit the Human Resources and check out the "Employment Opportunites" link. Your browser should then be redirected to another page. On the bottom left-hand side of the page, click on the "Browse Jobs" by category" link. Available positions will be listed under the "Research" heading.

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