John Engelhardt

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Dr. John Engelhardt is the director at the University of Iowa Center for Gene Therapy of Cystic Fibrosis, as well as the head of the department of anatomy and cell biology. [1] He is a well known scientist and inventor who created the first cloned ferret and has made huge strides in finding the cure for cystic fibrosis. [2]

Contents

Education

Dr. Engelhardt got his undergraduate degree in biochemistry at Iowa State University in 1985. He then went on to get his doctorate in human genetics from Johns Hopkins University in 1990. [3]

Research

Dr. Engelhardt is most widely known for his creation of new animal models for the study of cystic fibrosis. In the 1990s he developed the human tracheal xenograft models that allowed study of humanized airways on denuded rat tracheal scaffolds. However, he soon found that there were major limitation of mouse models to study CF. He later found that the ferrets represent a much better model for lung disease and in 2006 his laboratory became the first in the world to clone ferrets. [4] Dr. Engelhardt's research has been geared towards finding gene therapies for cystic fibrosis. Specifically, he focuses on: [5]

  1. the study of lung molecular and cellular biology as it relates to the pathogenesis and treatment of cystic fibrosis (CF) lung disease and associated diabetes
  2. molecular mechanisms underlying redox-mediated signal transduction in environmental injuries of the liver and the development of molecular therapies for ischemia/reperfusion injury, sepsis, and the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
  3. the biology of adeno-associated virus infection and the development of this vector for gene therapy of cystic fibrosis lung disease.

Honors

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surfactant protein A2</span> Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

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Pyocyanin (PCN−) is one of the many toxic compounds produced and secreted by the Gram negative bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Pyocyanin is a blue secondary metabolite, turning red below pH 4.9, with the ability to oxidise and reduce other molecules and therefore kill microbes competing against P. aeruginosa as well as mammalian cells of the lungs which P. aeruginosa has infected during cystic fibrosis. Since pyocyanin is a zwitterion at blood pH, it is easily able to cross the cell membrane. There are three different states in which pyocyanin can exist: oxidized (blue), monovalently reduced (colourless) or divalently reduced (red). Mitochondria play an important role in the cycling of pyocyanin between its redox states. Due to its redox-active properties, pyocyanin generates reactive oxygen species.

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mir-126

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">BPIFB1</span> Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

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Robert Williamson is a retired British-Australian molecular biologist who specialised in the mapping, gene identification, and diagnosis of human genetic disorders.

Jane Carolyn Davies is a British physician who is Professor of Paediatric Respirology at Imperial College School of Medicine. She is an Honorary Consultant at the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust.

Johanna Rommens is a Canadian geneticist who was on the research team which identified and cloned the CFTR gene, which when mutated, is responsible for causing cystic fibrosis (CF). She later discovered the gene responsible for Shwachman-Diamond syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes pancreatic and hematologic problems. She is a Senior Scientist Emeritus at SickKids Research Institute and a professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto.

Michael James Welsh is an American pulmonologist. He is the current Roy J. Carver Chair in Biomedical Research, the Professor of Internal Medicine in Pulmonary, Critical Care and Occupational Medicine at the Department of Internal Medicine, and the Director of Pappajohn Biomedical Institute, Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa. He is also a professor at the Department of Neurosurgery, Department of Neurology, and Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics. He received the 2022 Shaw Prize in Life science and Medicine, together with Paul A. Negulescu, for their work that uncovered the etiology of cystic fibrosis and developed effective medications.

References

  1. ↑ "John F Engelhardt". Cystic Fibrosis and Translation Centers. Cystic Fibrosis and Translation Centers. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
  2. ↑ Li, Z.; Sun, X.; Chen, J.; Liu, X.; Wisely, S. M.; Zhou, Q.; Renard, J. P.; Leno, G. H.; Engelhardt, J. F. (2006). "Cloned Ferrets Produced by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer". Developmental Biology. 293 (2). PMC US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health: 439–448. doi:10.1016/j.ydbio.2006.02.016. PMC   1892907 . PMID   16584722.
  3. ↑ "John F. Engelhardt, PhD". American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy. American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy.
  4. ↑ "John F. Engelhardt, PhD". Anatomy and Cell Biology. University of Iowa.
  5. ↑ "John F Engelhardt". Cystic Fibrosis and Translation Centers. Cystic Fibrosis and Translation Centers. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
  6. ↑ "John F Engelhardt". Cystic Fibrosis and Translation Centers. Cystic Fibrosis and Translation Centers. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
  7. ↑ "Engelhardt named 2019 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors". University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. University of Iowa. Retrieved December 5, 2019.
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