Delphine Gomez, PhD

Principal Investigator

Dr. Delphine Gomez received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Physiology and Cell Biology from the University Paris Diderot, France. She did her doctoral training under the supervision of Dr. Jean-Baptiste Michel at the University of Paris Diderot – Bichat hospital and investigated the dysregulation of the TGF-b signaling pathway in syndromic and non-syndromic Thoracic Aortic Aneurysms. She also uncovered that the TGFb/Smad2 signaling pathway dysfunction was, at least partly, caused by the epigenetic reprogramming of aneurysmal aortic smooth muscle cells.

After completing her Ph.D., Dr. Gomez joined Dr. Gary K. Owens’s laboratory at the University of Virginia to work on SMC plasticity in atherosclerosis. During her postdoctoral training, she identified a stable chromatin signature of the vascular smooth muscle cell lineage. Dr. Gomez developed an innovative method, named ISH-PLA, to detect histone modifications at defined genomic loci in single cells in histological tissue sections, allowing investigation of epigenetic mechanisms in archived specimens (Nature Methods 2013, PMID: 23314172). She also participated in a series of projects reevaluating the contribution of vascular smooth muscle cells in the development and progression of atherosclerosis and highlighting their remarkable plasticity (Nature Medicine 2015, PMID: 25985364; Nature Medicine 2016, PMID: 27183216; Nature Medicine 2018, PMID: 30038218). During her postdoctoral training, Dr. Gomez was recognized for her accomplishments by receiving a Scientific Development Grant for the American Heart Association (2015). She was also awarded the New Investigator Award from the Histochemical Society (2014) and the Junior Investigator Award for Women from the ATVB Women’s Leadership Committee (2015).

Dr. Gomez joined the University of Pittsburgh as an Assistant Professor in the Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, and a primary Faculty of the Pittsburgh Heart, Lung, and Blood Vascular Medicine Institute in 2017. Dr. Gomez has developed an NIH-funded research program focused on investigating the contribution of epigenetic mechanisms in controlling vascular development and vascular smooth muscle cell dysfunction in cardiovascular disease. Dr. Gomez is affiliated with the Cellular and Molecular Pathology, Integrative Systems Biology, and Molecular Pharmacology Graduate Programs.