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Academics

Graduate Program

The Center for Vascular Biology at the University of Connecticut Health Center 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 the Health Center 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 the Health Center. Specific information on the program, its requirements, and current students can be found at Cell Biology Graduate Program's website.

 

Postdoctoral Training

Postdoctoral 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, and 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 Postdoctoral 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, and 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. Postdoctoral 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.

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

Faculty and Topics
Timothy Hla, Ph.D., Director
Role of EDG/S1P receptors in endothelial biology and lipid mediators modulated by COX-2 in breast cancer progression.
Kevin Claffey, Ph.D.
Mechanisms of hypoxia-induced VEGF expression via mRNA stability and role in tumor progression and angiogenesis.
Ann Cowan, Ph.D.
Advanced imaging applications to cell biology, computational cell biology tools and image reconstruction.
Fernando Ferrer, M.D.
Christine Finck, M.D.
Guo-Hua Fong, Ph.D.

Role of VEGF receptors and hypoxia-mediated transcription factors in developmental vasculogenesis using genetic mouse models.
Henry Furneaux, Ph.D.
The regulation of gene expression by microRNAs.
David Han, Ph.D.
Proteomic and bioinformatics approaches to vascular remodeling and apoptotic cell engulfment.
Joel Pachter, Ph.D.
The mechanisms by which leukocytes and pathogens invade the central nervous system.
Linda Shapiro, Ph.D.
Cell surface peptidases and their role in tumor and adaptive cardiac angiogenesis.

 

Past Post Doctoral Fellows
Name Advisor Year Title and Current Position
Nicholas Ancellin Timothy Hla 1998 to 2002 Scientist, Glaxo-SmithKline, Paris
Swathi Arur David Han 2000 to 2002 Postdoctoral Fellow Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri
David Bishop-Bailey Timothy Hla 1997 to 1999 Assistant Professor, William Harvey Institute, London
Susan Cavar Timothy Hla 2001 to 2002 Science Teacher, Connecticut High School
Xinping Chen Guo-Hua Fong 2002 to 2003 Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
Chantal Colmont Timothy Hla 1999 to 2003 Research Associate, University of Cardiff, Wales
Yu-sheng Cong David Han 2002 to 2004 Assistant Professor, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky
Ellen Fan, M.S. David Han 2002 to 2004 University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky
Byeong-Churl Jang Timothy Hla 1999 to 2002 Assistant Professor, Korea
Kirsi Narko Timothy Hla 2000 to 2003 Research Associate, Helsinki University, Finland
Harunobu Ozaki Menq-Jer Lee 2001 to 2003 Cardiologist, Kyoko University
Gopalakrishnan Ramaswamy Henry Furneaux 2001 to 2002 Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Catherina Rodriquez Guo-Hua Fong 2001 to 2002 Instructor, Mexican Institute of Technology
Sibani Sengupta Henry Furneaux
Timothy Hla
2000 to 2003 Science Teacher, Private High School
Anita Tandle Henry Furneaux 2001 to 2002 Postdoctoral Fellow, National Institutes of Health
Ovidiu Trifan Timothy Hla 1997 to 2000 Senior Scientist, Monsanto-Searle, St. Louis, Missouri
Uche Uche David Han 2001 to 2002 Teacher, University of Connecticut Education System

 

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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