UTMB Department of Pathology

GRADUATES QUALIFY FOR CAREERS IN ACADEMIA, GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY

A wide gamut of basic science department positions are available, working on research problems relevant to clinical and basic sciences, and/or teaching students at various levels.

Faculty and staff positions are available in both basic science and clinical departments, working as individual investigators or team members in research and teaching.

More opportunities are available than ever before. Biotechnology is a developing industry with great promise for the future.  The heightened national awareness of the impact of infectious diseases such as AIDS, and the new rules and regulations regarding environmental pollution and drug and chemical safety contribute to the increased career opportunities for program graduates. An experimental pathology background is valuable in a variety of settings, particularly those involving human disease or interpretations of data about their pathogenesis.

Historically, pathology as a science began with Rudoph Virchow in the 19th century, studying tissue injury in terms of structural and molecular changes in cells.  The evolution of pathology has paralleled that of anatomy, shifting over the years from macroscopic to microscopic and molecular arenas. Pathology has benefited, in much the same manner as the new interdisciplinary science of neurobiology, from an influx of scientists with diverse backgrounds and disciplines who want to focus their interests on the study of disease. Yet pathology retains a separate and distinct central focus on the mechanisms of biologic injury and human disease not duplicated by other biomedical sciences.

Although all modern biomedical sciences have many areas of overlap in techniques used and biologic systems studied, each discipline has a different area of principal concern in which students are prepared to conduct independent research and to teach.

For example, anatomy is concerned with the structure, function, and development of cells and tissues; pharmacology is concerned with the actions of chemical substances on living systems; and physiology is concerned with animal functions from the level of the molecule to the organism.

Modern pathology is unique in its concentration on the structural and functional consequences of injurious stimuli for cells and tissues, and for the entire organism.  Modern pathology encompasses a broad interest in all aspects of disease processes, including etiology (cause), pathogenesis (mechanisms of development), structural (morphologic) changes induced in cells and organs, and functional consequences (clinical significance) of those changes.

The impetus for many of the experimental studies undertaken by pathologists in the study of disease processes arises from observations made in the clinical practices of anatomic pathology and laboratory medicine.  Although these practices are primarily diagnostic in nature and are carried out by licensed physicians and veterinarians, the observations made are inextricably linked to the scientific study of pathology.

This linkage occurs through the extensive intercommunication and cross-fertilization of ideas and research of individuals in academic institutions, government facilities, and industry, who combine both clinical practice and scientific investigation in their careers. Some of these scientists are products of combined M.D./Ph.D. programs.

The Experimental Pathology Doctoral Program plays a significant role in the existing M.D./Ph.D. program at UTMB. In fact, the origins of combined degree programs can be traced back to the Department of Pathology at New York University.  Experimental Pathology Ph.D. programs produce basic scientists whose interests lie in the study of disease processes.

In no other fundamental area of biomedical research is there a greater potential for dynamic interaction between basic and clinical scientists.

Basic sciences have recently made great advances in the understanding of biological processes at the molecular, structural, and functional level. There is, however, a gap that exists in the application of this new understanding to human diseases.

The increasing complexity of both clinical medicine and basic research is making this gap between knowledge and application increasingly difficult to bridge.  Few clinicians can maintain an extensive basic research effort because of limitations in training and the need to stay at the forefront of patient diagnosis and treatment.

Many basic scientists have little knowledge about the pathology of human disease.  Yet, an understanding of the fundamental processes involved in disease is essential to keeping these clinical activities on the cutting edge.

This situation creates a great need for basic scientists conversant in clinical problems and interested in human disease. Such basic scientists would serve as "bridgers of the gap" between basic and clinical sciences.  But who can train these gap bridgers? Pathology is ideally situated to provide such training because this discipline is naturally positioned at the interface between basic science and clinical medicine.

Scientists in a medical university pathology department are in a special position where clinical and experimental activities go on side-by-side, often in the same laboratories.  Thus clinical observations can readily provide the substrate and impetus for basic investigations of disease mechanisms.  Consequently, this group of scientists and physician-scientists is in a unique position to provide graduate students with the background in disease processes needed to attack critical questions of human disease.

For example, one of our faculty has collected tissue specimens from a large number of AIDS cases which show an association between aberrations of nervous tissue myelin and macrophage infiltration.  Similar phenomena are observed in experimental models of myelin degeneration due to metal poisoning. The question available for investigation is: Do these conditions share a common, possibly treatable, pathogenesis?

The Experimental Pathology Program is designed to meet the needs of students who want to work on problems intimately related to human disease processes.  Such students would include both those with a primary basic science background and interest as well as incipient physician-scientists who already have an M.D. degree or who are enrolled in the combined program.

This mix of students fosters the interaction between experimental and clinical disciplines.  The Experimental Pathology graduate faculty is composed of basic scientists, physician-scientists, and clinicians who together will provide the students with the kind of broad, interactive environment which can "bridge the gap" between basic and clinical sciences.

The goal of one of the required core courses, Pathobiology of Human Disease, is to analyze pathologic processes and unresolved issues in a group of major human diseases.  Students will also be exposed regularly to disease-related problems at departmental seminars and case presentations.

Graduate students in other basic science departments lacking a clinical element rarely have such close and frequent exposures to clinical matters.