Denis Guttridge will join the Medical University of South Carolina as director of the Charles P. Darby Children’s Research Institute and associate director of translational sciences for the Hollings Cancer Center effective May 1.
Guttridge most recently served as professor of cancer biology and genetics at Ohio State Comprehensive Cancer Center, where he has worked for the past 16 years. There he served as the associate director for basic research and was responsible for the coordination of basic science across the center’s research programs.
His job involved fostering and nurturing collaborations at Ohio State and Nationwide Children’s Hospital, involving more than 300 cancer researchers and their teams from 12 of the university’s colleges.
The Darby Children’s Research Institute, which opened in February 2005, is the largest and most comprehensive pediatric research facility in the Carolinas and one of only about 20 in the country.
The seven-story, 121,000 square-foot building houses 150 laboratories with 11 research programs dedicated to discovering the cures for a wide spectrum of conditions affecting kids, including cancer, genetic disorders, and diabetes.
Guttridge’s research focuses on both early muscle development and cancer. At OSU, he was the principal investigator for multiple NIH research project grants and an NIH research training grant.
A special area of his research focus is the nuclear factor kappa B family of transcription factors and their role in regulating skeletal muscle differentiation. This research made connections that led to insights in a number of disease conditions where NF-kB activity is chronically elevated.
Guttridge is a scientific leader in the molecular mechanisms of muscle-wasting conditions, including the cancer syndrome called cachexia that is commonly diagnosed in cancer patients and contributes to poor prognosis and a reduced quality of life.
Other research interests include pancreatic cancer that has the highest incidence of cachexia, and childhood illnesses related to skeletal muscle defects including Duchenne muscular dystrophy and a childhood cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma.
In addition to his role in the cancer center at Ohio State University as associate director of basic science, he directed the Center for Muscle Health and Neuromuscular Disorders and led working groups in cancer cachexia and pancreas disease.
