Faculty

Curriculum Vitae

B. A. in Biology , University of York, England
Ph.D. in Biochemistry, University of York, England
Senior Research Associate, Dept. of Genetics, Stanford University, California.
Assistant Professor, Dept of Biochemistry, USC, Los Angeles, Calif. (1988)
Senior Scientist, SRI International (1993)
Program Director, Molecular Cardiology Laboratory, SRI International, (1996)
Associate Professor, University of Miami , Miami, FL. (1998)
President & CEO of Integene Inc. (Intelligent Gene and Cell Therapy)

Research Interests

• Molecular mechanisms of hypoxia/ischemia-regulated gene expression.
• Molecular pathology of vascular disease.
• Control of cell death in ischemic heart disease/protective strategies.
• Gene therapy with "Intelligent Gene" delivery techniques.

MOLECULAR CARDIOLOGY

Keith A. Webster, Ph. D
Nanette H. Bishopric, M

The Molecular Cardiology Laboratory at the University of Miami has active research projects in the following areas:

• cardiac-specific transcriptional regulation
• cardiac stress responses/apoptosis
• hypoxia, ischemia, and redox-associated cell damage
• cardiac cell cycle protein interactions
• genetic regulation of cardiac hypertrophy
• cardiac gene transfer
• gene therapy: see under InteGene site

Applicable techniques include molecular biology, immunocytochemistry, laser imaging, motion analysis, protein chemistry, gene-chip array screening, viral gene transfer, apoptosis assays, animal models of heart failure.

Selected Recent Publications

Webster, K.A. Molecular Switches for Regulating Therapeutic Genes. Gene Therapy 6:951-954, 1999.

Webster, K.A., Discher, D., Kaiser, S., Hernendez, O., Sato, B., and Bishopric, N.B. Hypoxia-Activated Apoptosis of Cardiac Myocytes Requires Reoxygenation or a pH Shift and is Independent of p53. J. Clin Invest 104;239-252, 1999.

Webster, KA. Therapeutic angiogenesis: a case for regulated gene therapy. Crit. Rev. Euk. Gene Exp. 12(2): 113-125, 2000.

Yamashita, Y., Kajstura, J., Discher, DJ., Wasserlauf, BJ., Bishopric, NH., Anversa, and Webster, KA. Reperfusion-Activated Akt Kinase Prevents Apoptosis in Transgenic Mouse Hearts Over-Expressing IGF-1. Circ Res. 30,(6):609-614, 2001.

Yamashita, Y., Discher, DJ., Hu, J., Bishopric, NH., and Webster, KA. Molecular Regulation of the Endothelin-1 Gene Promoter by Hypoxia: Contributions of HIF-1, AP-1, GATA-2, and CBP/p300. J Biol Chem. 276 (16):12645-53, 2001.

Dougherty, C., Kubasiak, LA., Prentice, H., Andreka, P., Bishopric, N.H., and Webster, KA. Activation of c-Jun N-terminal Kinase Promotes Survival of Cardiac Myocytes after oxidative stress. Biochem. J. 362 (3): 561-571, 2002.

Kubasiak, L, Bishopric, NH, and Webster, KA. Hypoxia and Acidosis Activate Cardiac Myocyte Death through the Bcl-2 Family Protein BNIP3. Proc Natl Acad Sci 99 (20): 12825-30, 2002.

Graham, R., Bishopric, NH and Webster, KA. Gene and cell therapy for heart disease. IUBMB Life 54 (2): 59-66, 2002.

Webster, K.A. Therapeutic angiogenesis: a complex problem requiring a sophisticated approach. Cardiovascular Toxicology 2003;3:283-98.

Webster, KA and Bishopric, NH. Apoptosis Inhibitors for Heart Disease. Circulation. 108(24): 2954-6, 2003.

Webster, K.A. Evolution of Glycolytic Enzyme Gene Regulation by Hypoxia. J. Exp Biol. 206 (17): 2911-22, 2003.

Webster, KA. Aktion in the Nucleus. Circ Res. 94 (5): 565-569, 2004.

Dougherty, C., Kubasiak, LA., Frazier, D., Li, H., Bishopric, N.H., and Webster, KA. Mitochondria signals initiate the activation of c-Jun N-terminal kinase by hypoxia-reoxygenation. FASEB J. 18: 1060-1070, 2004.

Graham, RM, Frazier, D., Thompson, JW., Li, H., Haliko, S., Spiga, M-G., Bishopric, NH, and Webster, K.A. A unique pathway of cardiac myocyte death caused by hypoxia-acidosis. J Exp Biol. 207:3189-200, 2004.

Prentice, H., and Webster, K.A. Genomic and Proteomic Profiles of Diseased Myocardium. Trends. Cardiovasc. Med. (in press), 2004.

Gounis, M.J. , Wasserlauf, B.J., Prentice, H.M., Graham, R., Haliko, S., Lieber, B.B., Wakhloo, A.K. , and Webster, K.A. Capillary growth is confined to the transient period of VEGF expression that follows adenoviral gene delivery to ischemic muscle. Gene Therapy (in press) 2004.

Webster, KA. Therapeutic Angiogenesis for Coronary Artery Disease: clinical trials of proteins, plasmids, adenovirus and stem cells. Future Cardiology. (in press) 2004