What we do...

The properties of our cells represent the fundamental foundations of health, and at the same time, they provide the basis for understanding disease. At another level, interactions among cell systems contribute to the complex manifestations of disease processes. In this way, Cell Biology and Physiology lies at the center of efforts to understand how organisms and their cells function and how their dysfunction leads to human disease. Our discipline therefore seeks to understand the functional continuum that begins with the basic building blocks of cells, to extend that knowledge to understand how they work together as systems that cooperate in vital tissue and organ functions, and to understand how their properties can explain disease mechanisms. In other words, cell biologists and physiologists aim to trace disease mechanisms back to their cell and molecular origins.

It should then be no surprise that our discipline embraces a methodologically diverse scientific group. Members of our faculty use varied methods that include the exploration of molecular structure, of the fundamental functions of cells, of the cellular and molecular bases of disease, and of the translation of this basic understanding therapeutics. Cell biologists and physiologists follow biological problems where they lead, which often requires the development of new methods and approaches to achieve our basic goals. These approaches lie at the interface of the biological and medical sciences.

The Department of Cell Biology and Physiology is one of seven basic science departments in the School of Medicine. Members of our Department benefit from close and collegial interactions with researchers in other Departments, and with basic scientists in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh and at Carnegie-Mellon University. The Department is comprised currently of twenty-two research active Faculty, most of whom have joined us in the last ten years. Grant revenue to the Department has more than quadrupled during this period. Current research efforts focus on the function and dysfunction of ion channels, on membrane trafficking of proteins and lipids and their contribution to cell polarity, on reproductive biology, and on signal transduction in diabetes and metabolism.

The department is housed in administrative and research space in the South Wing of the Biomedical Science Tower (SBST). The reproductive biology faculty will soon relocate to new space within the Magee Woman’s Research Institute. We also have satellite laboratories in the Hillman Cancer Center. Our modern facilities and support cores provide the faculty with space designed to optimize their research efforts.

     Teaching

Members of our faculty are active in both the medical and graduate curricula and in curriculum development and student recruitment and mentoring. The Department’s program in Cell Biology and Molecular Physiology is part of the Inter-disciplinary Biomedical Graduate Program (IBGP) (http://www.gradbiomed.pitt.edu/). We teach extensively in the Cell Biology Block, which comprises approximately one-third of the first year graduate course, Foundations of Biomedical Science. Our flagship course departmental offering, ‘Cell Biology of Normal and Disease States, is required of all students entering the program (see: http://www.cbp.pitt.edu/gradprog/research/courses/courses.html). The course has been recently revised to include exciting areas in modern cell biology (e.g. stem cell biology, cell polarity and ion channel regulation and trafficking) as well as clinical conditions that arise from defects in these processes. Overall, the School of Medicine graduate program has 320 students currently working toward the PhD, and includes students in the newly formed HHMI-funded Computational Biology program, the Program in Integrative Molecular Biology, and the Structural Biology/Molecular Biophysics graduate program. Several of our faculty are members of these newly formed programs as well.

     Our Newest Recruit

Dr. Patrick Thibodeau joined CBP as an Assistant Professor in May, 2007. His research is focused on the structure and function of ATP-Binding Cassette (ABC) Transporters, multi-domain transport proteins that constitute a large and varied superfamily in the mammalian genome. Disease mutations in ABC transporters are the basis of cystic fibrosis and hypercholesterolemia, and altered expression of these proteins contributes to drug resistance in cancer, just to name a few. The solutes that ABC proteins transport are also varied, and include ions (CFTR), cholesterol, (ABCG5 and G8), small molecules and drugs (Pgp and MRP), and even proteins (Type I secretion). Dr. Thibodeau’s work uses functional and biophysical methods to examine the structural basis of ABC transporter function and the reaction cycles that are associated with solute transport. His studies extend from human CFTR to protease secreting ABC systems implicated in the pathogenesis of E. coli and P. aeruginosa. He is also examining the quality control and chaperone systems that monitor the structures of these proteins and degrade their misfolded, disease-causing mutants. Illustrations from Patrick’s work are included throughout the report.

     Research Partners

CBP and its faculty are fortunate to work in an environment that offers collaborations with clinical departments and divisions that permit us to extend our work to human diseases and to translate basic understanding to the clinic. Interactions with our clinical colleagues often support program/center development that leads to interdisciplinary funding opportunities from the NIH and appropriate Foundations. This funding would be otherwise unavailable to individual faculty. Current interactions include: