South Carolina SmartState Program

Professor

Dr. Obeid is a Professor and SmartState Endowed Chair in Biomedical Informatics in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). Dr. Obeid is a pediatrician who was formally trained in Medical Informatics at the Division of Health Sciences and Technology, a joint Harvard-MIT fellowship program.

He served as the Associate Director of the Biomedical Informatics Center (BMIC) for over a decade where he led the development of several academic and operational research informatics initiatives including the electronic health records (EHR) Research Data Warehouse (RDW), REDCap, and many others. Since his arrival at MUSC, he has served as principal investigator, co-investigator, and informatics leader on numerous federally funded projects. At the national level, he led several working groups related to translational research informatics. Dr. Obeid is the founder and director of two courses in Biomedical Informatics (MCR-746: Informatics and Data Management for Clinical Research and BDSI-712: Translational Informatics).

His research interests include artificial intelligence (AI), specifically, deep learning and large language models applications using EHR data for e-phenotyping and predictive modeling with focus on clinical text mining. Other research interests include natural language processing, electronic consents, secondary use of EHR data/data warehousing, and biomedical ontologies.

Dr. Obeid is the co-founder of the AI Hub at MUSC. He serves as the director of the Cancer Integrated Data-Enabled Resource (CIDER), which integrates a variety of multimodal data, and provides several services to researchers including, consultations, feasibility queries, brokered access to integrated data, and AI and NLP research services.

My area of expertise is in quantitative modeling and integrating human health data with heterogeneous panomic scale data using a translational bioinformatics toolset. I build and apply novel methods for analysis of data from novel high-throughput platforms to address new types of biological questions that these platforms enable. Moreover, as the Founding Director of the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Program for Human Microbiome Research, which serves as a central hub for resources related to microbiome research on campus, I am developing novel approaches to launch and conduct population-scale microbiome studies as well as studies that characterize microbiomes in natural environments.

Dr. Chris Cowan is Professor and Chair of the Department of Neuroscience at Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, and holds the SmartState Endowed Chair in Brain Imaging. Dr. Cowan is also the Director of the NIH-funded Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) in Neurodevelopment and Its Disorders (CNDD), the Scientific Director of the NIDA-funded Charleston Opioid Center on Addiction (COCA), and he is co-founder of NeuroEpigenix, a company advancing a novel therapeutic treatment for alcohol use disorder.

Dr. Cowan earned his BA from Wesleyan University (CT) and his PhD in Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology from Baylor College of Medicine. He completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital in the area of molecular neurobiology. Prior to joining MUSC in 2016, Dr. Cowan was an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical School and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital.

Dr. Cowan’s NIH-funded research focuses on molecular mechanisms of developmental brain wiring, syndromic forms of autism spectrum disorder, and epigenetic mechanisms underlying relapse and drug-cue reactivity in substance use disorders. His preclinical research lab utilizes a multidisciplinary approach to study these disorders, including genomics, cell and molecular biology, biochemistry, electrophysiology, complex behavioral analyses, and therapeutic development.

Carol Feghali-Bostwick, Ph.D., Professor and Kitty Trask Holt S.C. SmartState® Endowed Chair for Fibrosis Research in the Division of Rheumatology & Immunology, has considerable experience with training and mentoring at many levels. Dr. Feghali-Bostwick is heavily involved in all aspects of graduate education. Her successful research program investigates mechanisms of fibrosis in scleroderma. She has active collaborations with Dr. Schnapp, including a MPI R01 and has co-edited a book on lung injury with Dr. Schnapp.

Dr. Feghali-Bostwick is well-funded, with a strong track record for industry collaborative research and an intellectual property portfolio with several patents and a licensed IP of an anti-fibrotic peptide that is being developed for human clinical trials. She holds or has held many extramural leadership positions in NIH study sections, professional and scientific societies, and editorial boards. Her mentorship skills are evidenced by her K24 award and serving as Director of ARROWS, an NSF-funded initiative for advancement of women scientists at MUSC, and Co-Director of the CTSA TL1 predoctoral training program and KL2 career development program, and Director of CTSA/SCTR Workforce Development. She has received several mentoring awards including most recently the 2018 MUSC Peggy Schachte Mentor Award.

Research Profile

The Bradshaw laboratory is focused on cellular mechanisms controlling procollagen processing and collagen deposition in cardiac fibrosis and in periodontal ligament repair.

A fundamental question in cell biology is how cells regulate the synthesis and construction of tissue-specific extracellular matrices (ECMs) in their environment and, in turn, how changes in the structure and composition of the ECM can influence cell behavior in response to injury and disease. In particular, we are interested in cellular mechanisms of collagen fibril assembly in the ECM and the function of matricellular proteins in the regulation of this process. Matricellular proteins are defined as proteins that associate with the ECM but do not contribute structurally to the ECM in contrast to classical ECM proteins such as collagen and laminin. We have established that one matricellular protein, SPARC (secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine, osteonectin, BM-40), influences the formation of collagen I fibers in connective tissues of mice. For example, collagen accumulation associated with cardiac pressure-overload hypertrophy is significantly reduced in SPARC-null mice. Elucidation of pathways by which SPARC and other collagen binding proteins influence collagen incorporation and stability in the ECM can lead to the design of strategies to control fibrotic processes in the heart and in other tissues. Alternatively, in diseases in which collagenous tissue is degraded, such as in periodontal disease, factors that improve collagen assembly could be used as essential tools to restore damaged tissues.

Recently, my laboratory defined a novel role of SPARC in regulating the activity of transglutaminase in collagen fibril assembly. We reported that inhibition of transglutaminase activity altered collagen content, fibril diameter, and mechanical properties of tissue. As transglutaminase is highly expressed by macrophages, an interesting speculation is functional differences in collagen deposition might be tightly regulated by macrophage expression of transglutaminase and SPARC thus contributing to the disorganized fibrotic deposition of collagen in disease. The Bradshaw laboratory has been supported by grants from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the American Heart Association, the Medical University of South Carolina, and the US Department of Veterans Affairs.

Dr. Sheldon E. Litwin is a cardiologist with nationally recognized expertise in advanced cardiac imaging and its use in the diagnosis of heart disease and treatment of patients with heart disease. Dr. Litwin is board-certified in general cardiology, nuclear cardiology, echocardiography, and cardiovascular computed tomography (CT). He was recognized in 2014 in America's Top Doctors (Castle Connolly Medical Ltd.). He is a strong proponent of preventive cardiology and has a longstanding interest in weight loss as prevention and treatment for cardiovascular disease. He is an avid outdoorsman and exercise advocate who is passionate about caring for active adults who participate in sports or recreational exercise.

Prior to coming to MUSC Health, Dr. Litwin was chief of the division of cardiology at Georgia Regents University from 2011 to 2014 and director of cardiac imaging at the University of Utah from 1993 to 2011. Dr. Litwin is involved in clinical trials using new therapies for heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). He has published more than 100 scientific papers and serves on several editorial boards and national committees.

Dr. Litwin's medical degree was awarded by Washington University School of Medicine. He completed a residency at the University of Arizona and completed a cardiology fellowship at Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Brian Houston is a cardiologist specializing in the management of advanced heart failure, including the care of patients before and after heart transplantation or left ventricular assist device (LVAD). After graduating from Emory University School of Medicine, Dr. Houston completed residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He was invited to serve as an assistant chief of service of the Thayer Firm at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and he spent that year caring for patients and instructing residents and medical students. He remained at Johns Hopkins for his general cardiology fellowship and spent an additional year of fellowship there training in the care of advanced heart failure, LVADs, and transplantation.

Dr. Houston has been invited to present his research work at international scientific meetings. He has a particular interest in cardiac sarcoidosis and in the effects of LVAD support on the gastrointestinal tract, blood, and the right side of the heart. He was honored to be named a finalist for the American Heart Association's Young Clinician Award in 2015. Dr. Houston believes that each patient with heart failure is unique and that, to live their best life, they require a caring and comprehensive approach from a dedicated medical team.

Professor of Neurology
Director, Movement Disorders Division
Residency: MUSC
Fellowship: Movement Disorders at Rush University
Interests: PD cognition, neuroprotection, functional neurologic disorders

Dr. Revuelta is an Associate Professor of Neurology and SmartState Endowed Chair in Neurodegenerative Disorders at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Revuelta also directs the Murray Center for Research in Parkinson’s Disease and Related Disorders and is the Medical Director of the Deep Brain Stimulation Program. His NIH-funded research program focuses on the development of invasive and non-invasive neuromodulation interventions for Parkinson’s disease and related disorders.

Since arriving at MUSC in 2011, I have strived to expand translational research opportunities within my department and throughout MUSC by combining clinical research, biorepository, and molecular pathology resources with an extensive biomedical proteomics and small molecule mass spectrometry facility. My primary research focus is in identifying glycoproteins, glycans, and glycolipids using human and animal model tissues and biofluids.

My laboratory developed the founding MALDI imaging mass spectrometry methodology to allow researchers worldwide to access N-glycosylation from the tissue microenvironment in both formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded and frozen tissues. The glycan tissue maps serve as guides to target tumor-localized glycoproteins for proteomic analysis, as well as provide molecular determinants for histopathology applications. This technology has recently been adapted and funded to develop tools to analyze cell lines, immune cells, and biofluids directly on slides. New research efforts are focused on developing new methods for investigating O-glycan, glycogen, and glycosaminoglycan oligomers, as well as expanding prior glycosphingolipid workflows.

A large part of my laboratory is focused on understanding and developing diagnostic methods and treatments for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a primary cancer of the liver that kills close to 1 million people every year. Our lab was one of the first to perform total serum glycan analysis for biomarker detection and one of the first to perform serum glycoproteomics. Through this we identified over 30 serum glycoproteins with increased levels of fucose in those with HCC.

Dr. Deshmukh is a cancer population scientist whose research focuses on human papillomavirus infection (HPV) and associated cancers that lie at the intersection of cancer epidemiology, health economics, and decision science. He primarily focuses on studying HPV infection and related cancer risk, evolving epidemiology, and guiding the development, evaluation, and implementation of risk-targeted, effective, and optimal (cost-effective) primary and secondary preventive interventions and policies.

A professor of public health sciences, Marvella E. Ford, Ph.D., oversees the center’s effort to address the state’s critical cancer disparities. Through community outreach and educational programs, Ford and her team work with leaders throughout the state to build bi-directional, trusting, and long-lasting partnerships, which are critical to Hollings investigators in tailoring culturally and contextually knowledgeable cancer interventions. She also works with the South Carolina Department of Public Health to implement cancer-focused initiatives, including the State Cancer Plan.

My research focuses on the use of mice and stem cells to understand the contribution of transcription factors toward embryonic development and function of the liver. Traditionally, my laboratory has relied on the use of mouse models including knockout mice and mouse embryonic stem cells. During this time, we have garnered a substantial understanding of the basic molecular pathways controlling liver function and hepatogenesis.

While the mouse has been a valuable model, we have introduced the use of induced human pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) because we believe that they could offer a new and robust experimental model. We have shown that we can control differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells to hepatocytes with high efficiency, to the extent that >95% of cells in the culture dish express characteristic markers of differentiated hepatocytes. In addition, we have developed novel technologies to facilitate the efficient culture and reprogramming of human iPSCs. Such approaches have raised the possibility of using stem cell-derived cells for the study of hepatocyte differentiation and to potentially treat liver disease.

Ken Ruggiero, PhD, is Professor and SmartState Endowed Chair of the Technology Applications Center for Healthful Lifestyles (TACHL), as well as Director of the Telehealth Resilience and Recovery Program. He received his BA from the State University of New York at Buffalo and MA and PhD from West Virginia University, and completed his internship and NIMH postdoc at MUSC. Dr. Ruggiero’s research centers on the development, testing, and implementation of technology-enhanced interventions. Most of his early research focused on brief, web-based self-help interventions. Over time, this work evolved into the use and evaluation of technology-based stepped care approaches for victims of disaster and serious injury. He is PI on an active NIH grant (through 2021) to conduct a randomized controlled trial of Bounce Back Now, a smartphone-based intervention for disaster survivors in partnership with the American Red Cross. He is also Co-PI on an active Duke Endowment grant (through 2020) to adapt and implement the Telehealth Resilience and Recovery Program in three partnering trauma centers in South Carolina.

Nancy Klauber-DeMore, M.D. is the Director, Medical Scientist Training Program; Co-Leader Developmental Cancer Therapeutics, Hollings Cancer Center and the BMW Endowed Chair in Cancer Research at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Klauber-DeMore has extensive research experience in developing new therapies for breast cancer that have led to clinical advances in patient care, particularly for those with metastatic disease. She has been a principal or co-investigator on more than 30 active and completed clinical trials and has contributed to five patents or patents pending. She is also developing novel surgical devices to aid in breast surgery.

Dr. DeMore is also a physician-scientist with extensive research experience in developing new therapies for breast cancer. For more than 25 years, she has investigated tumor angiogenesis. Her lab focuses on discovering novel factors that stimulate the growth of new capillary blood vessels that provide tumors with oxygen and nutrients with a goal of developing new drugs to block these factors, therefore inhibiting tumor growth.

Dr. DeMore received her medical degree from the University of Health Sciences/The Chicago Medical School. She then completed General Surgery Residency at Boston University, followed by a surgical research fellowship at Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and a Surgical Oncology Fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

My research is focused on developing novel immunotherapies for non-small cell lung cancer. Immunotherapy has become a mainstay of treatment for non-small cell lung cancer’s (NSCLC), yet PD-1/PD-L1 directed immune checkpoint blockade alone or in combination with chemotherapy fails to yield durable responses in the large majority of treated patients. Our understanding of immunotherapy’s success or failure on an individual basis must evolve rapidly to extend benefit to a great proportion of treated patients.

As scientific director of the Hollings Advisory for Rapid Translation (HART), I provide consultation to investigators as they navigate the trial development process. Whether it is connecting to potential funding partners or facilitating collaboration among other researchers at MUSC or other cancer centers, HART supports the efficient activation of new investigator-initiated clinical trials.

I have a long-standing interest in the role of mitochondrial metabolism in pathobiology, especially in relation to alcoholic and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, oxidative stress, ischemia-reperfusion injury to heart and liver, mitochondrial autophagy (mitophagy), and cancer. My laboratory has published more than 400 papers in peer-reviewed journals (h-index = 118) plus more than 100 book chapters. Productive, long-term collaborations with junior and senior colleagues contributed importantly to this success. For these projects, my laboratory applies new techniques of quantitative laser scanning confocal, intravital multiphoton, and super-resolution microscopy, as well as Seahorse respirometry and related metabolic flux techniques, for physiological analysis of mitochondria and other organelles in living cells and in the intact tissues of living animals.

Dr. Paczesny's laboratory is internationally recognized for its expertise and achievements in the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT) field. She has pioneered the study of proteomics/biomarkers for complications post allogeneic HSCT and is now transitioning the laboratory work into clinical practice. She also has extensive expertise in the cancer immune tumor microenvironment, inflammation and alarmins, T lymphocyte biology and mechanisms of immunity and tolerance as well as translating novel drug-targetable biomarkers to treatment.

Dr. Shikhar Mehrotra completed his Ph.D. in Immunology in India and post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington, CT. He joined MUSC in 2006, where his research focuses on understanding T cell biology for improving immunotherapy of cancer.

Dr. Mehrotra has held numerous leadership roles at MUSC alongside his highly productive research career. He is currently the co-scientific director of Oncology and Immunotherapy Programs for the Center for Cellular Therapy, an FDA registered cGMP level facility with capabilities ranging from immunomonitoring of patient samples to manufacturing of cellular products for immunotherapy. He has served on the College of Medicine’s Research Oversight Committee since its inception in 2020.

Raymond N. DuBois, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of MUSC Hollings Cancer Center and the associate provost of cancer programs. As a physician-scientist, Dr. DuBois is passionate about cancer research and patient-centered care. He drives the strategy to strengthen and grow Hollings impact on cancer care in South Carolina.

An internationally known scientist, Dr. DuBois has made significant contributions to understanding the role of inflammation and inflammatory mediators in the progression of colon cancer and other gastrointestinal malignancies. His work has led to a better understanding of the molecular basis for anti-inflammatory agents, such as aspirin, in reducing cancer risk. It has also led to clinical trials showing how drugs that inhibit this pathway could prevent or intercept the cancerization process.

Dr. DuBois has over 160 peer-reviewed research articles out of 274 publications, more than 72 review articles, 25 book chapters, and three books during his career, and his work has been cited over 70,000 times with an H-index of 120. He is also a co-inventor of a method to identify and target cellular genes needed for viral growth and cellular genes that function as tumor suppressors in mammals, which led to the creation of a biotech company that utilized this technology to discover new drug targets for the treatment of cancer and viral infections.

DuBois has been recognized with numerous awards for his cancer research, including the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Research Award, the Dorothy P. Landon-AACR Cancer Prize, the Margaret Foti Award for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research, the AACR Distinguished Service Award, and the Anthony Dipple Carcinogenesis Award from Oxford University Press. He was inducted as a National Academy of Medicine member in 2019. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Academy of the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Gastroenterology Association, and the Royal College of Physicians (London). In addition, he currently holds the position of Executive Chair of the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research and was previously Vice Chair of the Stand Up to Cancer Foundation as well as President and Chair of the AACR Foundation Board.

Dr. DuBois earned a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry with honors from Texas A&M University, a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and a medical degree from The University of Texas School of Medicine in San Antonio. In addition, he completed his internship/residency in medicine and a gastroenterology fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he studied under Nobel Laureate Daniel Nathans as a Howard Hughes Research Associate.

Dr. Craig Lockhart is the Director of the Division of Hematology & Oncology at MUSC and Associate Director for Clinical Science at MUSC Hollings Cancer Center. His research specialty is gastrointestinal cancers, and he has been a principal investigator on more than 100 Phase I/II and III trials.

Prior to joining MUSC, Dr. Lockhart was on the faculty and in leadership roles at the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis/Siteman Cancer Center, and at Vanderbilt University/Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.

Dr. Lockhart has been conducting early-phase clinical trials for over 20 years. His specific research interests are developing and conducting Phase I/II clinical trials of novel therapeutics applied to gastrointestinal cancers. In treating these cancers, he aims to incorporate novel agents or molecular/genetic-based treatments into therapeutic trials in the pursuit of personalized cancer care. He has developed and led multi-institutional clinical trials involving the treatment of GI tumors through national cooperative groups as well as investigator-initiated studies. He has been an investigator and co-investigator on individual grants, on successful SPORE grant applications and on successful multi-institutional UM1 grant applications.

Dr. Lockhart has also served on several committees for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), including the scientific and career development committees. He has been a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines committee for gastric and esophageal cancers. He also serves as faculty at the ASCO/American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Methods in Clinical Cancer Research Workshop, mentoring fellows and junior faculty on the development of gastrointestinal cancer therapeutic protocols.

Dr. Lockhart graduated from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas in 1993. He completed residency training at Barnes Hospital at Washington University, fellowship training in hematology/oncology at Duke University and a fellowship in drug development at GlaxoSmithKline in the North Carolina Research Triangle Park. He also earned a Master of Health Science degree in clinical trials at Duke University. He completed his undergraduate degree, a bachelor’s in biology, at Rice University.

Ozgur Sahin, Ph.D., is a professor and endowed chair in Lipidomics, Pathobiology and Therapy in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Hollings Cancer Center at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). Furthermore, I am an American Cancer Society (ACS) Research Scholar; founder, and president of LoxiGen, Inc.; and co-founder, and manager of OncoCube Therapeutics, LLC. My laboratory focuses on elucidating the mechanisms of cancer therapeutics, drug resistance and metastasis, mainly in breast cancer. We combine our expertise in cancer cell biology, functional transcriptomics/bioinformatics, and drug discovery, with those of the experts from the medicinal chemistry, proteomics, and medical oncology fields to target the most aggressive cancers.

Besim Ogretmen, Ph.D., is a professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the SmartState Endowed Chair of Lipidomics and Drug Discovery. An internationally renowned investigator, Ogretmen has over 25 years of experience in cancer research, specializing in the field of lipid signaling and metabolism. In his associate director role, Ogretmen integrates fundamental discoveries across multiple discipline areas, helping to accelerate translational advances into the clinic. His overall goal is to improve survival outcomes of cancer patients by developing collaborative/team science-based research projects between basic and clinical researchers.

My research is aimed at identifying drug discovery/development strategies with a platform of redox pathways. Earlier studies on resistance mechanisms to alkylating agents and anti-microtubule drugs led to prevalent focus on redox pathways, particularly those linked to glutathione and glutathione S-transferases (GST). For example, evidence that attachment of glutathione to cysteine residues influenced enzyme activity and laid the groundwork for more recent work on how drugs and/or stress influence post-translational S-glutathionylation and its associated cycle. These led to defining how redox mechanisms interconnect with essential signaling pathways such as how GSTP regulates Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK)-related signaling events and acts as a catalyst for the forward reaction of S-glutathionylation. Through clinical trials, we identified S-glutathionylated proteins as plasma biomarkers for responses to drugs and radiation. The redox proteome and its associated pathways therefore form a platform for discovery and development that continues to drive our present-day research.