The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation announced today that Gary Gorbsky, Ph.D., has joined OMRF as head of the molecular and cell biology research program. With this addition, OMRF now counts forty-five principal scientists, its highest tally ever.
Gorbsky comes to OMRF from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, where he was a professor and vice chair for research in the department of cell biology. Prior to his tenure at OUHSC, Gorbsky spent 11 years as an assistant and associate professor at the University of Virginia.
Gorbsky holds both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in biology from Princeton University and studies mitosis, the process of how cells divide. He has earned international recognition for his work in the area of chromosomal movement.
“Gary Gorbsky is an outstanding scientist who has made landmark contributions to the field of cell biology,” said OMRF President Dr. J. Donald Capra. “I am confident that he will be a world-class program head at OMRF.”
At OMRF, Gorbsky will lead a program of nine scientists, including several who are among the world’s leaders in researching C. elegans, a tiny worm that plays a crucial role in human genetic research. OMRF’s molecular and cell biology program is home to both the world’s largest C. elegans gene “knockout” laboratory and the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Genetics Research, a facility for the production of genetically modified mice that is among the finest of its kind in the world.
About OMRF:
OMRF (www.omrf.org) is a nonprofit biomedical research institute dedicated to understand and curing human disease. Its scientists focus on such critical research areas as Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and cardiovascular disease. OMRF is home to Oklahoma’s only Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and only member of the National Academy of Sciences in the area of biomedical research.
