Joshua Snyder
Year started program: 2004
Program name: Molecular Pharmacology
2004 - BS, Biochemistr, Grove City College

Deciding which graduate school to attend can be overwhelming. At the completion of my undergraduate work, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in biomedical research. However, I was overwhelmed at the task of deciding on an exact field of study. Thankfully, I found the Interdisciplinary Biomedical Program at the University of Pittsburgh. A hallmark of the program is the flexibility that allows for lab rotations through three prospective labs in any of 7 degree granting programs. This flexibility allowed me to find a lab that had exciting research and perhaps most importantly a great mentor and charismatic post-docs, graduate students, and technicians. Another key reason for choosing the University of Pittsburgh is the quality of life. Far removed from the smoke filled days of the steel industry, the city has so much to offer at an affordable price, whether it is the arts, shops, pubs, or a great selection of world class professional sports.

Chronic lung diseases, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, affect millions world-wide and severely attenuate quality of life. Key aspects of these diseases are uncontrolled inflammation and defective epithelial repair. As such my research focuses mainly on elucidating the signaling networks of lung inflammation and epithelial repair. A major facet of my research relies on the use of microarray technology and bioinformatics to identify key pathways that may regulate each process and then test these pathways in mouse model systems. To this end I have identified several novel pathways that regulate airway inflammation and epithelial repair. Future work will build upon these pathways to better understand how each is deregulated in the setting of chronic lung disease as well as develop strategies for cell or molecular therapeutic intervention.

Publications:
1. Reynolds SD, Reynolds PR, Snyder JC, Whyte F, Paavola KJ, Stripp BR. Ccsp regulates cross talk between secretory cells and both ciliated cells and macrophages of the conducting airway. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol 2007;293(1):L114-123.

2. Zemke AC, Snyder JC, Brockway BL, Drake J, Reynolds SD, Kaminsk N, Stripp BR. Molecular staging of epithelial maturation using secretory cell-specific genes as markers. Am J Resp Cell Mol Bio 2008.

3. Snyder JC, Zemke AC, Stripp BR. The reparative capacity of airway epithelium impacts deposition and remodeling of extracellular matrix. Am J Resp Cell Mol Bio (In Press)

4. Snyder JC, Teisanu RM, and Stripp BR. Endogenous lung stem cells and chronic lung disease. AJ Path (In Press).

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