Richard Gomer
Professor of Biochemistry & Cell Biology
Dr. Gomer's website
Dr. Richard Gomer is motivated by the hope that his research will save millions of lives in the future. A member of Rice University’s Biochemistry & Cell Biology department, he is conducting research in three interrelated areas: fibrosing diseases, wound healing, and how organisms regulate the growth of specific tissues.
Dr. Gomer is interested in the number one killer in the United States: cardiovascular disease. Some of his research focuses on internal scar tissue diseases. In these generally fatal diseases, a wound healing response gets turned on inappropriately in internal organs, causing scar tissue to form. Examples are congestive heart failure, cirrhosis of the liver, pulmonary fibrosis, and kidney failure. “While we were studying something else entirely, we found what might be a therapeutic for these diseases, and we now have a company working on this. We hope to start human trials in about a year,” says Dr. Gomer.
Other research projects include wound healing, another very large problem for the medical profession. In the United States alone, in the diabetic population there are approximately 80,000 amputations per year due to non-healing wounds. Dr. Gomer’s lab found a material that may help heal these wounds and also might enable faster recoveries after injury or surgery for wounds that heal normally.
As for his work on tissue growth, he says, “Being able to control the growth of tumors would be wonderful. There are tumors where you know where the tumor is, and it’s often relatively easy to physically remove it. It is generally the little hidden metastases that kill patients. Finding signals that control tumor growth would allow a physician to inject a growth inhibitor into a patient’s bloodstream, and the inhibitor would go all over the body, slowing tumor growth.”
“Richard’s fibrosis research finding came about from a chance meeting. But, as Pasteur said ‘Chance favors the prepared mind.’ Richard is a wealth of information. This vast knowledge base enables Richard to make significant, insightful and clever discoveries. He is a great colleague. He is always interested in discussing research findings and problems and always making insightful suggestions to others,” says Dr. Janet Braam, Biochemistry & Cell Biology department chair. Dr. Gomer has shared his passion for saving lives with others and is collaborating with many other laboratories to complete his research, including the Adam Kuspa and Mark Entman groups at Baylor College of Medicine, the Elizabeth Travis group at MD Anderson, the Yinka Olutoye group at Texas Children’s Hospital, the Deb Pedersen group at Texas A&M, the Rick Bucala group at Yale University, and the Wany Jang group at Donguk in Korea.
Born in Chicago, he considers Houston his hometown. He earned his other degrees in southern California: a B.A. in Physics from Pomona College and a Ph.D. in Biology from Caltech. Dr. Gomer’s Ph.D. topic explored muscle tissue: “If you look at muscle in a microscope, you see a bunch of little assemblies, each about a thousandth of an inch long. I was trying to add a piece of the puzzle on how they get put together. For instance, there’s a chain of ~400 identical protein molecules, and I was fascinated by how the system can count to 400.”
Why Rice and Houston? Dr. Gomer says it is an easy answer: “I really liked the people in the Biochemistry & Cell Biology department! They understood the importance of doing basic research on simple model organisms and were very supportive. And Houston is a really vibrant city where it’s relatively inexpensive to live. The first time I visited, I was amazed to see trees and grass. In California and the Northeast, unless you actually visit, one tends to get the impression that Texas is like the deserts in the old cowboy movies.”
When not helping save lives, Dr. Gomer enjoys sailing, bike riding, amateur radio, scuba diving, and winemaking. His daughter Katie is a Rice student.
Dr. Gomer’s favorite website:
http://www.promedior.com/