One thrill of research is to be the first person in the history of humanity to comprehend one of life’s mysteries. One responsibility of medical practice is to improve the human condition. One reward of teaching is the moment of comprehension, shared by teacher and student. All are opportunities to make a difference - small quests for immortality - and I have been fortunate to experience each.
I grew up in Phoenix, AZ, and studied engineering at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. After two stints in research as a visiting medical student at the NIH, I enrolled in the MD/PhD program at UCLA. There, I worked with Stephen Crews to discover how the bHLH-PAS family of transcription factors engages cognate DNA response elements. Following training in Anatomic Pathology at Stanford, I worked with developmental biologist Matthew Scott to investigate the naked cuticle (nkd) gene family, which in the fruit fly Drosophila encodes a novel protein that regulates Wnt signaling during body segmentation. I was recruited here as a W. W. Caruth, Jr., Endowed Scholar in Biomedical Research in the Department of Pathology in 2000. In addition to running a NIH-funded research lab, I made a commitment to teaching and service here at UT Southwestern. I served as UTSW chapter president of Sigma Xi (the scientific research society) from 2001-03 and as Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Pathology from 2004-08. I have directed the Pathology course for medical students since 2007.
