Angela Dibenedetto

Education

• B.S. SUNY at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 1982
• Ph.D. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 1989
• Post-Doctoral University of Pennsylvania Medical School 1990-5

Publications

• Branigan, G.L., Olsen, K.S., Burda, I., Haemmerle, M.W., Ho, J., Venuto, A., D'Antonio, N.D., Briggs, I.E., and A.J. DiBenedetto. 2021. Zebrafish paralogs brd2a and brd2b are needed for proper circulatory, excretory and central nervous system formation and act as genetic antagonists during development. J. Dev. Biol. 9:46.
• Jalali, F., DiBenedetto, A.J., and Karlsson, J.O.M. 2018. Chilling causes perivitelline granule formation in activated zebrafish oocytes. Cryobiology 81:210-213.
• Murphy#, T., Melville, H., Fradkin, E., Bistany, G., Branigan, G., Olsen, K., Comstock, C., Hanby, H., Garbade, E., and DiBenedetto A.J., 2017. Knockdown of epigenetic transcriptional coregulator Brd2a disrupts apoptosis and proper formation of the midbrain-hindbrain boundary (MHB) region in zebrafish. Mechanisms of Development 146: 10-30.
• Desmond, M.E., Knepper, J.E., DiBenedetto. A.J., Malaugh. E., Callejo, S., Carretero, R., Alonso. M.I. and Gato,A. (2014). Focal adhesion kinase as a mechanotransducer during rapid brain growth of the chick embryo. International Journal of Developmental Biology 58: 35-43
• DiBenedetto, A.J., Guinto#, J.B., Ebert#, T.D., Bee*, K.J., Schmidt* M., and Jackman T., 2008. Zebrafish brd2a and brd2b are Zebrafish brd2a and brd2b are paralogous members of the bromodomain-ET (BET) family of transcriptional coregulators that show structural and expression divergence. BMC Developmental Biology 8: 39
• DiBenedetto, A.J., Klick Stoddard*, J., and Glavan*, B.J. 2001. Cloning and molecular characterization of a novel gene encoding a WD-repeat protein expressed in restricted areas of adult rat brain. Gene 271: 21-31.
• Erhardt, J.A., Hynicka, W., DiBenedetto, A., Shen, N., Stone, N., Paulson, H., and Pittman, R.N. 1998. A novel F box protein, NFB42, is highly enriched in neurons and induces growth arrest. Journal of Biological Chemistry 273: 35222-7.
• Wang S, DiBenedetto AJ, Pittman RN. 1997. Genes induced in programmed cell death of neuronal PC12 cells and developing sympathetic neurons in vivo. Developmental Biology 188: 322-36.
• DiBenedetto, A. J., and R. N. Pittman. 1995. Death in the balance. Perspectives on Developmental Neurobiology. 3: 109-117.
• Pittman, R. N., and A. J. DiBenedetto. 1995. Apoptosis of undifferentiated and terminally differentiated PC12 cells.@ In: Cellular Aging and Cell Death. (Holbrook, J. J., G. R. Martin, and R. A. Lockshin, eds.). John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, pp. 255-265.
• Pittman, R. N., and A. J. DiBenedetto. 1995. PC12 cells overexpressing tissue plasminogen activator regenerate neurons to a greater extend and migrate faster than control cells in complex extracellular matrix. Journal of Neurochemistry 64: 566-575.
• Pittman, R. N., S. Wang, A. J. DiBenedetto, and J. C. Mills. 1993. A system for characterizing cellular and molecular events in programmed neuronal cell death. Journal of Neuroscience 13: 3669-3680.

Teaching Philosophy

I believe teaching should be a preparation for individual insight, and an inspiration to wonder. It should cultivate habits of mind that question assumptions and strive to see things in their proper relation. As members of a University, it seems that we have a responsibility not only to master our particular body of knowledge and strive for excellence in our field, but also to see our mastery in the context of a more integrated whole—the general endeavor of human beings to inquire into the truth of things. We are to encourage in ourselves and model for our students, an attitude of friendship, collegiality, and humility before the task at hand—which ultimately, is to try to understand our own nature and the nature of the world around us. My personal teaching philosophy sees teacher and student as mutual benefactors in the process of reasoning together; believes in personal interaction and practice as excellent channels of knowledge; and seeks to foster interdisciplinary thinking, intellectual independence and personal responsibility. I try to reflect these guiding principles in my specific teaching goals.

As a faculty member in Biology, I hope to teach science as a way of knowing, and to help students grasp the content of science by emphasizing its practice. I aim to: immerse students in team-based projects that ask them to design/conduct experiments and to think creatively, cooperatively and analytically; encourage each of them to reach progressively higher levels of learning involving synthesis, integration and communication of scientific ideas in debates, papers and panels; ask them publicly to defend their thinking and conclusions and to give one another constructive feedback; remind them to consider always the impact of science and technology on society; inspire them with the history of scientific ideas through class discussion of classic “break-through” papers and primary literature; and motivate them by letting my own enthusiasm for biology, and my concern for them, be seen and felt in the classroom and in my research lab.

As a faculty member of the College of Arts & Sciences, my teaching aspirations are directed to all students, regardless of major: to turn out critically thinking, broadly educated adults who are also scientifically literate—familiar with the method of science, appreciative of its vital contribution and power, and possessing enough understanding of basic concepts and facts to form intelligent judgments as citizens on issues to which science speaks; but, who are immune to unwarranted scientism—that is, to the belief that there is no other way to truth of whatever kind. My involvement in the team-taught interdisciplinary “crossroads” sections of ACS, where we all together grapple with still living fundamental questions posed by ancient and modern texts, bringing both scientific and humanistic perspectives to bear, has been a wonderful vehicle for these aspirations! In sum, I am convinced we teach best by example: when we ourselves model the intellectual life of wonder and truth-seeking, and share it personally, we inspire rather than coerce a complementary spirit in our students. They then will go on, hopefully for a lifetime, to teach themselves.

Research

Molecular biology and genetics. My overall research interest is to understand how the fundamental processes of cell death, differentiation, and division are integrated and cross-regulated, so that normal development of the vertebrate embryo is achieved. I use the freshwater tropical zebrafish as a model system, and our lab centers around the investigation of the critical epigenetic transcriptional co-regulator Brd2 (bromodomain-containing 2), which is implicated in the control of all three processes, and is both a maternal and zygotic factor during development. We ask questions such as: 1) What is the expression pattern of Brd2 throughout development and in different tissues, and what clues to function do these patterns provide? 2) What are the upstream regulators and downstream transcriptional targets of Brd2, what cellular function do these targets accomplish, and how do targets change through developmental time? 3) What molecules interact with the Brd2 protein and under what conditions, and how do these interactions elucidate regulatory connections between cell death, differentiation and division? 4) What are the effects of overexpressing or knocking down expression of Brd2 on germline and embryonic development, and what does this imply about its epigenetic role in the context of the whole organism? Since Brd2 has a closely related paralog (Brd2b) in zebrafish, we also conduct comparative evolutionary studies to assess the level of functional divergence that has occurred after gene duplication. Experimental approaches entail molecular, cellular and genetic techniques including: Northern and Western blot analysis, in situ hybridization to RNA in tissues and zebrafish embryos, immunohistochemistry, ChIP, RIP, DNA sequencing and analysis, bioinformatics and data-mining, cloning and polymerase chain reaction (PCR), microinjection of zebrafish embryos, transgenic line construction, and phenotypic and behavioral analyses.