Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine
Scripps Institute of Oceanography
University of California San Diego, MC #0212
La Jolla, CA 92093-0212
Phone: 858-534-0566
Email: lgerwick@ucsd.edu
Lena Gerwick is a lecturer in the Marine Biology program and a research scientist belonging to the Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine. Her research interests involve the evolution and functional aspects of innate immunity and its role in inflammation in an aquatic model system. Since 1994 she has been researching the inflammatory response in rainbow trout with the focus being the transcriptional response in the liver and the subsequent secretion of many of these proteins to the blood stream. Great strides have been made by her and others and today many of the inflammatory response proteins (acute phase proteins) have been sequenced and for some the expression pattern has been mapped. To further be able to address some of the functional aspects of some of these innate immune molecules Lena’s laboratory has started to use zebrafish as a model so that mutants, RNAi experiments etc can be utilized to ask some very interesting biological questions regarding the innate immune system and its role in selection, development, disease resistance and reproduction.
Furthermore she is developing some tools that can be used for screening of marine natural products as a source of potential new drugs using zebrafish and embryos for early in vivo testing.
Courses
- SIO 269 Marine Biotechnology
Publications
Gerwick, L., Demers, N.E. and Bayne, C.J. Modulation of Stress Hormones in Rainbow trout by means of anesthesia, sensory deprivation and receptor blockade. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A. (1999) 124: 329-334.
Gerwick, L., Reynolds, W.S. and Bayne, C.J. A precerebellin-like protein is part of the acute phase response in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss. Developmental and Comparative Immunology. (2000) 24(6-7): 597-607.
Bayne, C.J., Gerwick, L., Fujiki, K., Nakao, M. and Yano, T. Immune - relevant (including acute phase) genes identified in the livers of rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, by means of suppressive subtractive hybridization. Developmental and Comparative Immunology. (2001): 25(3):205-17.
Bayne CJ and Gerwick L. The acute phase response and innate immunity of fish. Developmental and Comparative Immunology (2001) 25(8-9):725-43. Review
Gerwick, L., Steinhauer, R., LaPatra, S., Sandell, T., Ortuno, J., Hajiseyedjavadi, N. and Bayne, C.J. The acute phase response of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) plasma proteins to viral, bacterial and fungal inflammatory agents. Fish and Shellfish Immunology, 2002 12(3):229-42.
Fujiki, K., Gerwick, L., Bayne, C.J., Mitchell, L., Gauley, J., Bols, N.and Dixon, B. Molecular cloning and characterization of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) CCAAT/enhancer binding protein beta. Immunogenetics (2003) 55(4):253-261.
Gerwick, L., Corley-Smith, G.E., Nakao, M. and Bayne, C.J. Intracranial injections of bacterins induce local transcription of a gene encoding precerebellin-like protein. Fish Physiology and Biochemistry, (2005), 31(4): 363-372
Tilton, SC, Gerwick, LG, Hendricks, JD, Rosato, CS, Corley-Smith G, Givan SA, Bailey GS, Bayne CJ, Williams DE. Use of a rainbow trout oligonucleotide microarray to determine transcriptional patterns in aflatoxin B1-induced hepatocellular carcinoma compared to adjacent liver. Toxicol Sci. (2005)88(2):319-30.
Bayne, CJ, Gerwick, L, Wheeler, PA, Thorgaard, GH. Transcriptome profiles of livers and kidneys from three Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) clonal lines distinguish stocks from three allopatric populations. Comp Phys and Biochem Part D, (2006) 1 (4):396-403
Gerwick, L., Corley-Smith,G. and Bayne, C. J. Gene transcript changes in individual rainbow trout livers following an inflammatory stimulus Fish Shellfish Immunol. 2007 Mar;22(3):157-71