Richard C Kurten, PhD
Associate Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences/College of Medicine
Phone: (501) 364-2823

Dr. Kurten is a Co-Director of the Lung Cell Biology Laboratory at ACHRI which was established to strengthen respiratory research, with a particular emphasis on asthma. The overall goal of the laboratory is to advance therapeutic strategies for managing asthma and respiratory disease by understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of the disease. Dr. Kurten’s research interests include growth factor receptor regulation and trafficking, especially as it relates to epidermal growth factor and airway epithelial cell wound healing. Another area of interest is the problem of beta-2 adrenergic receptor downregulation and desensitization to bronchodilator medications. Dr. Kurten is working with colleagues in the Lung Cell Biology Laboratory to develop gene therapy approaches to mitigate this problem using both rats and isolated lung tissue. Dr. Kurten is also the director of the UAMS Digital and Confocal Microscopy Laboratory and specializes in microscopic visualization of living cells.

Schnackenberg BJ, Jones SM, Pate C, Shank B, Sessions L, Pittman LM, Cornett LE, Kurten RC. The beta-agonist isoproterenol attenuates EGF-stimulated wound closure in human airway epithelial cells. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol. 2006 Mar;290(3):L485-91.

Kurten RC, Chowdhury P, Sanders RC Jr, Pittman LM, Sessions LW, Chambers TC, Lyle CS, Schnackenberg BJ, Jones SM. Coordinating epidermal growth factor-induced motility promotes efficient wound closure. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol. 2005 Jan;288(1):C109-21.

Jones SM, Foreman SK, Shank BB, Kurten RC. EGF receptor downregulation depends on a trafficking motif in the distal tyrosine kinase domain. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol. 2002 Mar;282(3):C420-33.

Kurten RC, Eddington AD, Chowdhury P, Smith RD, Davidson AD, Shank BB. Self-assembly and binding of a sorting nexin to sorting endosomes. J Cell Sci. 2001 May;114(Pt 9):1743-56.

*To find additional publications by this author, please visit Pubmed Central, a National Institutes of Health-operated site for electronic distribution of life sciences research reports.

Arkansas Biosciences Institute, the major research component of the Tobacco Settlement Proceeds Act of 2000.