Kathleen Morgan

Dr. Morgan is Dean ad interim at BU College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences Sargent College and director of the Cytoskeleton & Signaling Laboratory (Morgan Lab). Dr. Morgan directs a basic research program on the interaction of signaling scaffolds and the cytoskeleton of the contractile vascular smooth muscle cell relevant to the area of cardiovascular disease. She is currently Chair of Sargent’s Health Sciences department and has previously been Director of an independent not-for profit research institute, the BBRI. Her lab group has been responsible for the first [Ca] measurements in vascular smooth muscle, which has led to the concept of Ca sensitization vascular smooth muscle and the subsequent discovery of multiple ERK- and PKC-dependent pathways. They have also cloned and identified many new smooth muscle proteins and have identified novel smooth muscle functions for old proteins. Dr. Morgan has trained 64 predoctoral students, postdoctoral fellows, undergraduate students and visiting scientists. The Morgan lab has developed many new methodologies to tackle physiologic, cellular and molecular level questions on the function of the contractile smooth muscle cell. The group has a significant track record of productivity in advancing the understanding of fundamental mechanisms of function of the smooth muscle cell, an area that is a prerequisite for the development of rational therapeutics for cardiovascular disease.