Faculty Profiles
Phone: (716) 829-5181
Specialty/Research Focus:
Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism; Neurodegenerative disorders; Pathophysiology; Endocrinology; Molecular Basis of Disease
Research Summary:
Dr. Browne’s research is focused primarily on the clinical biochemistry of oxidative stress (OS) in human health and disease. Specifically, his research focuses on mechanisms of oxidative lipid damage and the antioxidant roles of high-density lipoproteins (HDL. This research includes pure biomarker method development and validation employing primarily high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) along with collaborative clinical studies of the role of oxidative stress in cancer, infertility and women’s health, and neurological disease. Current studies on-going in Dr. Browne’s laboratory include investigations of the role of HDL and PON1 in embryo morphology outcomes during in vitro fertilization (IVF), a study of the role of oxysterols in Multiple Sclerosis disease progression and investigations of the role of bioactive lipid mediators in response to air pollution.
Phone: (716) 829-5188
Specialty/Research Focus:
Microbiology; Cell growth, differentiation and development; Cytoskeleton and cell motility; Genomics and proteomics; Molecular and Cellular Biology; Molecular genetics; Gene Expression; RNA
Phone: 716-829-5191
Specialty/Research Focus:
Apoptosis and cell death; Cell growth, differentiation and development; Cytoskeleton and cell motility; Immunology; Signal Transduction; Stem Cells
Research Summary:
My independent research at The University at Buffalo focuses on targeting the mammary gland microenvironment by evaluating cellular and tissue responses during specific developmental windows of mammary gland remodeling including puberty, the period of hormonal withdrawal during estrous cycling, or post-lactational involution. My choice to focus on discrete times of development for chemopreventive intervention, rather than long-term (and often life-time) intervention, represents a unique approach of short-term exposure at critical points of mammary gland development. Our goal is to allow women to bypass the need for lifelong compliance to a chemopreventive diet or drug regimen in order to attain lifelong protection against breast cancer. Developmentally targeted dietary interventions being investigated in our lab include continuous administration of oral contraceptives, dietary exposure to conjugated linoleic acid, and ethanol.
Phone: (716) 898-5113
Research Summary:
ASCP; NY State licensed Senior Hematology/Blood Bank Technologist Erie County Medical Center
Phone:
Specialty/Research Focus:
Behavioral pharmacology; Neurobiology; Neuropharmacology; Regulation of metabolism; Signal Transduction
Research Summary:
Catecholamines such as dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain play important roles in a wide range of disparate physiological and behavioral processes such as reward, stress, sleep-wake cycle, attention and memory. The catecholamines are also well known for their treatment of neural disorders and many other diseases. Therefore, the examination of the catecholamines is of great importance not only in pharmaceutical formulations but also for diagnostic and clinical processes. The role and contribution of catecholaminergic innervation in the limbic system to biological functions and behavior are still poorly understood, however, due to the complicated functional heterogeneity, the small size of the limbic brain nuclei. In vivo and in vitro electrochemical measurement at microelectrodes has enabled direct monitoring of neuronal communication by chemical messengers in real time, which provides new insight into the way in which information is conveyed between neurons. Such information enables to study the basis for understanding the mechanisms that regulate it, the behavioral implications of the chemical messengers, and the factors regulate normal and altered chemical communication in various disease states (e.g. cardio vascular disease, degenerative nerve diseases, and drug addiction). My overall research focuses on two areas. Firstly, the design and implementation of development of new types of electrochemistry-based sensors and ancillary tools to monitor catecholamines and nonelectroactive neurochemicals in a chemically complex environment in the peripheral and central nervous systems of test animals. Secondly, application of the newly developed analytical techniques or existing methodologies for real-time monitoring of the neurochemicals i) to understand role of the neurochemicals in the brain in stress- and reward-related behaviors, ii) define and understand dysfunctions of the central and peripheral nervous systems in disease states by observing fundamental changes in neurochemical transmission in anesthetized and awakened animals.
