Department of Pathology

University of Tennessee Health Science Center

Biography:

Dr. Lawrence M. Pfeffer is the Muirhead Professor of Pathology, Vice-Chair and Director of the Graduate Program in Pathology.  In addition, he is the Director of Basic Research at the University of Tennessee Cancer Institute.  He received his Ph.D. from the Sloan-Kettering Division of the Cornell University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in 1977 and was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Rockefeller University from 1977 to 1980. He was a faculty member at The Rockefeller University from 1980 until 1991 when he joined the faculty at the University of Tennessee, Memphis. 

Dr. Pfeffer is currently the principal investigator of an NCI grant, project leader of a section of an NIH-funded Hepatitis C Core Center grant, and previously received an American Cancer Society Junior Faculty Research Award and a Leukemia Society of America Scholar Award. Dr. Pfeffer serves on various committees on the University of Tennessee campus, including the Graduate Studies Council and the Faculty Senate Executive Committee. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry and the Journal of Interferon and Cytokine Research, and serves as an ad hoc reviewer for numerous scientific journals and grant review committees. He is a member of several national societies, including the American Association of Immunologists, the American Society for Microbiology, the Harvey Society, the Pluto Club, and the International Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research.

Research Interests:

He is active in the areas of student education and biomedical research, focusing on cell and molecular biology of interferon action. This research has resulted in ~80 peer-reviewed manuscripts and 20 book chapters. 

Selected Publications:

Pfeffer, L.M., Mullersman, J.E., Pfeffer, S.R., Murti, A., Shi, W. & Yang, C.H. STAT3 as an adapter to couple phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase to the IFNAR1 chain of the type I IFN receptor. Science, 276: 1418-1420 (1997).

Yang, C.H., Murti, A. & Pfeffer, L.M.  STAT3 complements defects in an interferon-resistant cell line: Evidence for an essential role for STAT3 in interferon signaling and biological activities. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 95: 5568-5572 (1998).

Ozes, O. N., Mayo, L. D., Gustin, J., Pfeffer, S.R., Pfeffer, L. M. & Donner, D. B. NF-kB activation by tumour necrosis factor requires the Akt serine-threonine kinase. Nature 401: 82 - 85 (1999).

Yang, C.H., Murti, A., Basu, L., Kim, J.G. & Pfeffer, L.M. IFN promotes cell survival by activating NF-kB. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 97:13631-13636 (2000).

Yang, C.H., Murti, A., Pfeffer, S.R., Kim, J.G., Donner, D.B. & Pfeffer, L.M.  IFN a/b promotes cell survival by activating NF-kB through phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase and Akt. J. Biol. Chem. 276: 13756-13761 (2001).