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Lab Members
Currently, there are four predoctoral students from the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the Hocking laboratory. Our senior technician, Susan Wilke-Mounts (Senior Technical Associate; Department of Pharmacology and Physiology) brings over 20 years of technical experience to the lab and has extensive knowledge and expertise in protein biochemistry, molecular biology, and methods investigating cell-matrix adhesions. There is typically one undergraduate student and one rotating graduate student in the lab during the year. High school students from the Rochester area have joined us during the summer as part of the UR's community volunteer program.
Two doctoral students and one master's student from the Department of Biomedical Engineering have completed their thesis work in the Hocking lab. Both doctoral students are now postdoctoral fellows at academic institutions - one is at Yale University and the other is at the UR in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. Our previous Master's student is now an M.D./Ph.D student at the UR. Several undergraduate students from a variety of undergraduate schools (including University of Notre Dame, UR, and Orte Braude Collage in Israel) have completed Independent Research Projects in our lab. In addition, fifteen graduate students have completed lab rotation projects in the Hocking lab; these students came from several different departments including Biomedical Engineering, Pathology, and Pharmacology and Physiology. Please contact Dr. Hocking for information regarding undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral research opportunities.
Kelley Garvin
Kelley is a native Rochestarian who received a BS in Chemical Engineering and a minor in Biomedical Engineering from Cornell University. She is currently a third year PhD student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering working on a joint project between Dr. Hocking's and Dr. Diane Dalecki's labs. This project involves developing ultrasound as an enabling technology for the fabrication and monitoring of functional tissue-engineered constructs. Kelley's project is focused on creating mechanically sound and biologically active tissue analogs using the mechanical forces associated with ultrasound propagation. She is working towards enhancing the mechanical properties of tissue constructs by controlling the organization of the extracellular matrix (ECM) molecules collagen and fibronectin using ultrasound radiation forces. Such research has important applications to the field of tissue engineering.
Candace Gildner
Candace was also born and raised in Rochester, NY. She graduated from UR with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and has also completed a MS thesis in Biomedical Engineering at UR. She is currently a student in the MD/PhD program at UR and is in her fourth year as a PhD student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Candace is studying how collagen and vitronectin regulate the structure of heparin-binding domains in fibronectin and in turn, the physiologic properties of extracellular matrix fibronectin. She performs in vitro studies looking at cell growth and contraction and visualizes the extracellular matrix using immunofluorescence microscopy. She will also be studying how vitronectin mediates the progression of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease using a cigarette smoke mouse model. Her goal is to establish factors that regulate the deposition, conformation and physiologic properties of extracellular matrix fibronectin and investigate if these factors are localized to the lung tissue in response to cigarette smoke.
Daniel Roy
Dan is from Southington, Connecticut and graduated with a BS in Biomedical Engineering from UR. He is presently a third year PhD student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Dan is hard at work on our Nanonectin Project. He is developing and optimizing the construction of various small fibronectin matrix mimetics (“Nanonectins”) that enhance cell growth and migration. Currently, he is performing assays that compare the stimulatory affects of these proteins as adhesive substrates versus soluble factors. He will later determine if topical application of these Nanonectins can enhance cell proliferation in vivo and increase the rate of cutaneous wound closure in mice. We envision the future chemical application of these small molecule therapeutics as a means to rapidly up-regulate cell function and promote nutritive blood flow to soft tissue wounds and burns.
Carlos Sevilla
Carlos is from San Salvador, El Salvador. He graduated from the University of Virginia with a BS in Biomedical Engineering and a BS in Material Science. He is currently a third year PhD student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Carlos is working in conjunction with Dr. Dalecki’s lab studying the biological and acoustic effects of ultrasound on the conformation of fibronectin by using fluorescently tagged fibronectins. He will determine if ultrasound-treated fibronectin can promote healing in a cutaneous wound mouse model.
Susan Wilke-Mounts
A native Buffalonian, Susan made the short trip down the thruway and received both her BA and MS in Biology from UR. She is a Technical Associate and is responsible for constructing many of our recombinant fibronectin and vitronectin fusion proteins. One of her favorite tasks is manipulating DNA to create our Nanonectins as well as full-length wild-type and mutant fibronectin and vitronectin proteins. She has been studying how various mutations to basic amino acids in the heparin binding domain of vitronectin affect its ability to bind to heparin and in turn its functional properties. She has also recently started using fluorescence spectroscopy to monitor unfolding of fibronectin fragments in response to denaturants or physical forces. Susan also keeps the lab running smoothly by ordering our supplies and making sure we are in compliance with university safety policies.
Former Lab Members
Liqiong Gui, Ph.D.
Liqiong is from Shanghai, China. She graduated from East China University of Science and Technology with both BS and MS degrees in Biomedical Engineering. Here she studied how matrix fibronectin and our Nanonectins enhance cell spreading and the intracellular signaling proteins, such as Src, caveolin and paxillin, that are involved in this process. Liqiong is now a post-doctoral fellow at Yale University.
Craig Lefort, Ph.D.
Craig, currently a post-doctoral fellow at UR in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, is from Northbridge, Massachusetts. His undergraduate degree is a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University. While in Dr. Hocking’s lab, Craig studied cell to cell adherens junction complexes containing N-cadherin and actin. He determined fibronectin’s effects on the proteins that make-up these complexes, including a possible novel role for tensin.
Katherine Wojciechowski
Kathy is also from Buffalo, NY. She graduated from Ithaca College with a BA in Biology and soon became the first member of Dr. Hocking’s lab at UR as a technician. While working in the lab, Kathy completed a MS degree in Pharmacology from UR. Her recent work has focused on determining what domains of fibronectin are necessary for differing degrees of integrin activation by using immunofluorescence and cell ELISA assays. Also, she often helps others in the lab with their studies by performing Western blot, growth, migration and immunofluorescence assays related to their projects.
Contact Us
Denise C. Hocking, Ph.D.
University of Rochester
School of Medicine and Dentistry
Box 711
601 Elmwood Avenue
Rochester, NY 14642
Telephone: 585-273-1770
Fax: 585-273-2652
