Claude E. Gagna
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Claude E. Gagna, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Life Sciences, School of Health Professionals, Behavior and Life Sciences, at the New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, NY. He received a Ph.D. Degree in Anatomy, with a minor in Biochemistry, from New York University.Dr. Gagna is an active professor in the biology department, contributing to both lecture and laboratory learning. Along with being a professor, Dr. Gagna focuses much of his time on research involving the knowledge of DNA and RNA structure and function. He was inducted the Inventor of the Year in the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame. Dr. Gagna was honored for his invention of novel technology to immobilize unaltered DNA or RNA molecules onto specially modified microscope slides used in basic biological research and drug efficacy testing. Dr. Gagna has been granted patents for his invention of a novel nucleic acid microarray in the United States and Japan. He will be receiving patents for his novel nucleic acid microarray in Europe and his novel chromatin immunoprecipitation microarray assay in the near future.
Research[edit]
Dr. Gagna has published many articles dealing with the structure and function of B-DNA and Z-DNA as well as the process of apoptosis and terminal differentiation. Most of his research discusses the relationship between the different types of DNA and skin (e.g. human melanoma)/ocular lens. For his study dealing with the localization of B-DNA and Z-DNA in terminally differentiating fiber cells (Gagna 1997), he measured the amount of B and Z-DNA in epithelial cells and terminally differentiating fiber cell nuclei of normal dog ocular lens. His observations were correlating with the immunohistochemistry of α-crystallin and eosin Y staining pattern. Histochemical Feulgen reactions, histological stains, and immunohistochemical detection of single-stranded DNA was used to document the process of DNA degradation. His observations revealed that there was a severe change in DNA content and structure that can be related to the changed intracellular protein supramolecular order known as the phase transition zone at about 90 µm. The lack of staining for Z-DNA at around this level and a decrease in staining for B-DNA suggests that there was an altered nuclear function. This can be correlated with a sudden loss of α-crystallin staining in human lens at about 102 µm. This shows that there was an overall reorganization of the major crystalline lens within the fiber cell cytoplasm. Furthermore, the staining intensity of eosin severly decreased at about 95 µm in dog ocular lens. His study also confirmed previous studies conducted by past researchers that the degradation of B-DNA and Z-DNA within the total lens chromatin will inactivate the machinery that is vital for nuclear function such as the synthesis of lens proteins. Nonetheless, there are various prominent regional differences within the lens that occurred due to the loss of nuclear function such that there is a relationship between post-translation changes in lens protein and the reorganization of lens supramolecular order (Morgan et al. 1989).
Another of Dr. Gagna research deals with Z-DNA in human melanoma cells. Given that melanoma is a malignant tumor that affects melanocytes, the frequency of melanoma has shown to continually increase over the years. Z-DNA is characterized as an alternate form of right-handed double-stranded (ds) B-DNA. Z-DNA act as a transcriptional enhancer, RNA, editing, and for recombination. Dr. Gagna has observed that there are left-handed ds-Z-DNA in the epidermis of normal human skin. The human epidermis constantly undergoes destruction in which the cells from the stratum basale are displaced to the stratum corneum via cell death (e.g. apoptosis and terminal differentiation). He observed that the highest and most consistent amount of Z-DNA were located in the stratum basale layer of normal human epidermal skin. However, skin that is affected with melanoma, the amount of Z-DNA is not reduced in the higher levels of the human epidermis. As the epidermal cells are pushed upwards to form corneocytes, there are increased levels of Z-DNA in the upper regions of the epidermis, especially in the stratum spinosum and stratum granulosum. Future studies focus on locating Z-DNA in epidermal genes so that additional target sites can be discovered in order to develop new class drugs that are based on B-DNA to Z-DNA transitions.
Selected Academic and Professional Honors and Awards[edit]
| Award | Year |
|---|---|
| Winner of the "Fourth NANO 50 Awards-Technology Category" (NASA) | 2008 |
| Nanotechnology Finalist- "Research of the Year" (Best of Small Technology Awards) | 2007 |
| "Inventor of the Year" - New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame-Research and Development Council of New Jersey | 2006 |
| Dean's "Award for Outstanding Research," NYIT | 2004 and 2005 |
| "Standard of Excellence Award," New York College of Osteopathic Medicine, NYIT | 2005 |
| Tenure and Promotion, NYIT | May 2005 |
| 5th Milestone Anniversary, NYIT | 2004 |
| "Faculty Scholars Reception Award," NYIT | 2003, 2006, 2007, and 2008 |
| 1st Place, NYU-Basic Medical Sciences, "Award for Outstanding Research" | 1988 |
| "Leonardo DaVinci Award for Achievement in Science," Leonardo DaVinci Society | 1979 |
References[edit]
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
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- ↑ "Method for immobilizing multistranded nucleic acid molecules by modifying more than one strand thereof, and binding each strand to a solid support US 6936461 B2".
- ↑ New Jersey Medical School-NJMS-UH Cancer Center http://njms.rutgers.edu/departments/medicine/divisions/derm/faculty.cfm. Missing or empty
|title=(help) - ↑ "Turned Sunshine into a Killing Force" (PDF). New Jersey Medical School Pulse.
- ↑ "Faculty Directory Life Sciences NYIT Claude Gagna, Ph.D., Associate Professor".
- ↑ "New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame". New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame.
- ↑ Gagna, Claude. Localization and quantification of intact, undamaged right-handed double-stranded B-DNA, and denatured single-stranded DNA in normal human epidermis and its effects on apoptosis and terminal differentiation (denucleation). http://www.researchgate.net/publication/26283263_Localization_and_quantification_of_intact_undamaged_right-handed_double-stranded_B-DNA_and_denatured_single-stranded_DNA_in_normal_human_epidermis_and_its_effects_on_apoptosis_and_terminal_differentiation_%28denucleation%29. Missing or empty
|title=(help) - ↑ Lambert, W. Clark; Gagna, Claude E.; Lambert, Muriel W. Trichothiodystrophy: Photosensitive, TTD‑P, TTD, Tay Syndrome http://www.landesbioscience.com/curie/chapter/4525/. Missing or empty
|title=(help) - ↑ "Advanced Techniques for Genomics and Proteomics:Translational". http://www.americanlaboratory.com/913-Technical-Articles/114244-Advanced-Techniques-for-Genomics-and-Proteomics-Transitional-Structural-Chemogenomics-Chemoproteomics-Pharmacogenomics-and-Pharmacoproteomics. External link in
|publisher=(help); Missing or empty|url=(help) - ↑ Gagna, Claude E.; Lambert, W. Clark; Kuo, Hon-Reen; Farnsworth, Patricia N. Localization of B-DNA and Z-DNA in Terminally Differentiating Fiber Cells in the Adult Lens (PDF) http://jhc.sagepub.com/content/45/11/1511.full.pdf. Missing or empty
|title=(help) - ↑ Faculty Staff Achievments http://www.nyit.edu/about_nyit/faculty_staff_achievements_2012_3/. Missing or empty
|title=(help)
