Shannon Jay Odelberg, Ph.D.

Shannon Odelberg, PhD, is a research associate professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Cardiology, an investigator in the Molecular Medicine Program, and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah School of Medicine.

Dr. Odelberg’s laboratory focuses on the signaling pathways that drive tumor establishment, growth, and metastasis and the vascular leak that is associated with inflammatory diseases. Members of his lab and their collaborators have shown that activation of the small GTPase ARF6 plays a role in the signaling pathways that promote uveal and cutaneous melanoma growth and metastasis and vascular leak. By targeting ARF6 or other factors in these signaling pathways, tumor growth and metastasis can be reduced and the vasculature can be stabilized, thus suggesting a new approach for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases.

In the past, Dr. Odelberg studied the cellular and molecular basis of regeneration, focusing primarily on newt limb, spinal cord, and heart regeneration. These regenerative processes are dependent upon an extraordinary degree of cellular plasticity where differentiated cells revert to a progenitor state, proliferate, and then redifferentiate into fully functioning cells that compose the regenerated structure or tissue. Dr. Odelberg and his colleagues showed that the composition of the extracellular matrix changes dramatically during the regeneration process and that the transient regenerative extracellular matrix plays an instructive rather than passive role in the regenerative process.

Dr. Odelberg completed his PhD in molecular genetics and pathology at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Utah, he joined the faculty of the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Cardiology.