Pathology
& Laboratory Medicine
Welcome
from the Chairman
About
the Program
Faculty
Courses
Master
of Arts
Doctor
of Philosophy
|
Michael
J. O'Brien, MD, MPH, Chairman ad interim
Introduction
The
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine offers a Master of
Arts program in pathology and doctoral programs in experimental pathology,
and three interdepartmental tracks (immunology, cell molecular biology
and neuroscience). The doctoral program is broadly based, offers
research training in basic and clinical investigations of disease,
and encourages students to integrate the two areas where appropriate
in their doctoral research. Integration of basic research principles
with knowledge of pathophysiology in humans and laboratory animals
is a major goal of the training program. The integration is achieved
through courses taught by the department faculty which comprises basic
scientist and pathologists at with Boston Medical Center Hospital,
and by others in basic science and clinical departments. Understanding
the predisposing factors and pathological processes leading to disease,
at the molecular, cellular, organ, and whole body levels, should ultimately
lead to better strategies for prevention and therapy of disease. For
example, areas of great interest in current research in the department
are the mechanisms that underlie the development of cancer and degenerative
diseases, the workings of the immune system in defense against disease,
and the genetic bases of many diseases.
The
research interests of the faculty include the following:
- tissue
and cell responses to dietary and other environmental influences
- mechanisms
of cell signaling
- structure-function
analysis and engineering of model and therapeutic antibodies and T cell
receptors
- factors
that determine lymphocyte migration and activity
- human
somatic cell, molecular and cancer genetics, colorectoal and breast
cancers
- roles
of growth factors and extracellular matrix in growth and differentiation
of tissues
Faculty members and students participate actively in the weekly departmental
research seminars and in the Program in Research on Women's Health,
which sponsors seminars and working group meetings.
Methods of investigation, in addition to morphologic procedures used
in classical pathology and ultrastructural studies, include culture
and study of bacterial and mammalian cells and tissues; biochemical
and molecular analyses of cell constituents; recombinant DNA technologies;
immunologic manipulation of cells and animals; immunologic and molecular
methods for identification of cell components and of genetic and other
biological markers, microarray technologies, etc.
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