Brian M Davis, PhD

Dr. Davis is a Professor in the Departments of Neurobiology and Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.  During his 35 years of running his own laboratory he as developed three main research programs. The first research program explores normal function of visceral afferents primarily in the colon, bladder and pancreas and how afferent function changes with disease.  The second project uses optogenetics to study communication between colon sensory neurons, enteric neurons, interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC), colon epithelium and postganglionic sympathetic neurons with the goal of developing a comprehensive connectome.  The third program employs genetic mouse models of human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and melanoma to study the role of the nervous system in cancer.  Dr. Davis’s lab was the first to show that sensory denervation of the pancreas can slow or halt development of tumors (PNAS 2016, 113:3078).  Recent studies in mouse models of melanoma with Dr. Yuri Bunimovich find similar results in melanoma, even when only the associated lymph node is denervated. The unifying theme of all of three projects is that studying any one cell system (e.g., neural, immune, vasculature) in isolation diminishes the potential impact because these systems evolved together, in an integrated manner.