Howard J. Worman, M. D.

Professor of Medicine and Pathology and Cell Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY

Editorial Board Member for BMC Cell Biology

My research is on the interface of cell biology and medicine. I study how mutations in genes encoding nuclear envelope proteins lead to changes in nuclear structure and current alterations in gene expression and signal transduction pathways that can explain disease pathogenesis. While these nuclear envelope proteins are expressed in all or most somatic cells, mutations in their genes cause a range of tissue selective diseases such as Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy and related cardiomyopathies, Dunnigan-type familial partial lipodystrophy and Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome.

BioMed Central provides my research group with readily accessible and timely scientific information. I find the BMC journals to be rapidly increasing in impact and see them continuing to become more and more important to investigators in many fields.