School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

Research and Focus Groups

Our faculty participate in vibrant focus groups that draw on expertise from the larger community of scientists at UB and at affiliated research institutions in Buffalo.

Community of Scientists

Our faculty have formed intradepartmental and multidisciplinary focus groups to collaborate with other scientists who share their interest in specific experimental problems.

Dr. Gabriela Popescu and students in her lab.

Student Collaborators

We have designed our curriculum based on the belief that we expect our graduates to be the sum of our collective expertise and to emerge better trained than any one of us. Students are therefore encouraged to be active members of our focus groups. This involvement provides them with regular contact with faculty and other students throughout Buffalo’s larger scientific community. The groups also sponsor seminars and organize workshops and symposia open to all researchers and student collaborators.

Intradepartmental Focus Groups

Molecular Genetics, Genome Integrity, and Gene Expression
Professors Buck, Gronostajski, Halfon, Kosman, Nowak, O’Brian, Ponticelli, Garrett-Sinha, Sinha, Surtees, Sutton
Membrane Transport and Signaling
Professors Blumenthal, Garrick, Popescu, Taub, Willsky
Protein Structure and Function
Professors Blumenthal, Ettinger, Kosman, Patel, Ponticelli, Popescu, Surtees, Sutton
Metabolic Disease
Professors Garrick, Kosman, Patel
Developmental Genomics
Professors Buck, Garrett-Sinha, Gronostajski, Halfon, Lee, Sinha
Bioinformatics
Professors Buck, Halfon, Nowak

Multidisciplinary Focus Groups

Witebsky Center for Microbial Pathogenesis
Graduate Group on DNA Replication
Developmental Genomics

University-Wide Research Focus Group

Our faculty play a key role in UB 2020, the university’s long-term strategic plan for transforming UB into a model 21st-century public research institution.

We play a leading role in the Molecular Recognition in Biological Systems and Bioinformatics (MRBSB) research group, one of eight UB 2020 strategic strengths. MRBSB seeks to translate laboratory discoveries into treatments for human disease.

Researcher Spotlight

Understanding Iron Metabolism

3/7/12

Michael Garrick, PhD, identified the first protein essential for normal intestinal iron absorption and the first mammalian iron transporter to be characterized at the molecular level. His work provides a major step forward in the understanding of iron metabolism.
Ion Channel Structure-Function

3/7/12

Kenneth Blumenthal, PhD, is an expert in protein structures. He researches structure-function relationships in ion channels using naturally occurring toxins as probes of ion transport and gating processes. One of his goals is to design drugs directed at the target channel.
Repairing Heart Tissue

3/7/12

Te-Chung Lee, PhD, demonstrated for the first time, in an animal model, that injecting adult bone marrow stem cells into skeletal muscle can repair cardiac tissue, reversing heart failure. He and his team showed that this non-invasive procedure increased heart cells two-fold.
Exploring Stem Cells’ Potential to Repopulate and Heal Organs

3/7/12

Richard Gronostajski, PhD, recently received $3.5 million from the Empire State Stem Cell Board to establish a Western New York Stem Cell Culture and Analysis Center.
Comparative Genomics

3/7/12

Norma Nowak, PhD, studies global comparative genomics and differential gene expression analyses. She contributed to the creation of the BAC libraries used to sequence the human genome.
Programmed for Obesity

2/28/12

Mulchand Patel, PhD, is a specialist in nutritional biochemistry. He found that fetuses of obese mother rats were programmed in utero to develop obesity in adulthood, and was the first to show that this metabolic programming occurs in the fetal hypothalamus.