OMRF adds four faculty members

OKLAHOMA CITY, June 14, 2007 – The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation today announced the addition of four scientists to the faculty of its Arthritis & Immunology Research Program. The four new faculty members are Patrick Gaffney, M.D., Kathy Moser, Ph.D., Jonathan Wren, Ph.D., and Igor Dozmorov, Ph.D.

“Their recruitment gives us a depth of scientific commitment and expertise that is unparalleled anywhere in the world on the problems we’ve chosen to study,” said John Harley, M.D., Ph.D., who heads the program.

Gaffney, an oncologist, comes to OMRF from the University of Minnesota, where he was an assistant professor in the hematology, oncology and transplantation division in the department of medicine. He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minn., before completing medical school at University of Minnesota in 1991. Dr. Gaffney's research interests have focused on genomic analysis of head and neck cancer and oral premalignant lesions, the genetics of hereditary colorectal cancer, and the discovery of genes that cause lupus.

Moser also was an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota’s department of medicine, where her research centered on rheumatic and autoimmune diseases. She earned a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from Oklahoma State University and her Ph.D. in microbiology/immunology from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

She will oversee a new clinic at OMRF focused on Sjögren’s syndrome, a chronic disease in which white blood cells attack the body’s moisture-producing glands. Additionally, Moser will conduct research on lupus. “She brings a scientific capacity here that didn’t exist anywhere five years ago,” Harley said. “She and her family are thrilled to be returning to Oklahoma.”

Wren earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Oklahoma and completed his Ph.D. in bioinformatics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He joins OMRF from OU, where he was a research scientist. He has served on the editorial board for Bioinformatics and currently is associate editor for the scientific journal. A founder and scientific advisory board member of eTexx Biopharmaceuticals Inc., Wren also is president of the Mid-South Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Society.

Dozmorov is developing new methods in bioinformatics, a field that merges biology with mathematics and computer science. His work searches for clues to who may be most susceptible to diseases like lupus and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. A native of Russia, Dozmorov earned his Ph.D. from the Bauman Higher Technological School in Moscow.

About OMRF:
Chartered in 1946, OMRF (www.omrf.org) is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institute dedicated to understanding and developing more effective treatments for human disease. Its scientists focus on such critical research areas as Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, lupus and cardiovascular disease. OMRF's scientists, who include a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, hold more than 500 U.S. and international patents.

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