A Short Biography:

Dr. Rozengurt discovered that neuro-hormonal signals (e.g., peptides of the bombesin family) which act as molecular messengers in a rich network of information exchange throughout the organism via GPCRs, are potent cellular growth factors for multiple cell types in culture, including intestinal epithelial cells and function as autocrine/paracrine mitogens for human cancer cells. He studies the transmission of the neuro-hormonal signal from surface receptors to the nucleus along a number of transduction pathways, typically protein kinase cascades, that act in a synergistic and combinatorial fashion to promote cellular responses, including migration and proliferation. His work revealed that these extracellular signals trigger a complex set of molecular responses and specific protein kinase cascades including kinase C and A (PKC and PKA), mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) and p70 S6 ribosomal protein kinase. More recently, he reported on the cloning and expression analysis of a novel protein kinase termed protein kinase D (PKD). PKD is directly activated by phorbol esters and also is part of a novel phosphorylation cascade downstream of protein kinase C. Current research activities in this area include a detailed mutational analysis to define the contribution of different domains of PKD to its regulation, modulation of its expression to determine the role of PKD in cell regulation and development of animal models with over-expression or under-expression of PKD in the epithelial cells of the digestive system. In addition to serine/threonine protein kinase cascades, his studies demonstrated that neuropeptides also stimulate a rapid increase in the tyrosine phosphorylation of multiple substrates including focal adhesion kinase (FAK), paxillin, and Crk-associated substrate (CAS). These proteins localize at focal adhesion plaques and are implicated in cell migration, proliferation, and transformation. The work of Dr. Rozengurt is dissecting the molecular mechanisms by which neuro-hormonal agonists induce these downstream pathways in normal and pancreatic cancer cells and is elucidating the role of these pathways in cell migration, proliferation and cancer.