2004 B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut
2010 Ph.D. in Biological Science, Florida State University
2010-2013 Postdoctoral Scholar, Stony Brook University Medical School
2013-2019 Assistant Professor, Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences
2019-2022 Associate Professor, Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences
2022-Present Associate Professor, University of Arizona College of Medicine - Tucson
BSc Biochemistry, Swansea University, 2012
PhD Medicine/Biophysics, Cardiff University, 2018
Postdoctoral Training in Cardiovascular Physiology, Brown University, 2018-2019
Postdoctoral Training in Cardiovascular Physiology, The Ohio State University, 2019-2023
I am a Professor with tenure in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Arizona. I am also an active member of the Asthma and Airway Disease Research Center and the BIO5 Institute and have faculty appointments in the Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in the Physiological Sciences and in the Allergy and Immunology Fellowship Training program. I serve as co-director of the Lung Research Focus group (RGF2) within the Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center.
Our lab is interested in understanding how the human genome regulates itself to bring about all of the cellular diversity present in our bodies. In addition, we are interested in how genetic variation and environmental exposures in human populations impact that regulation and sometimes leads to complex disease. The particular disease model that we focus on is asthma, a complex disease affecting ~10-20% of the population that involves many cell types of the lung and immune system and offers exquisitely detailed examples of gene-environment interactions that influence disease outcomes.
The Churko Lab combines stem cell biology, genetic engineering, bioengineering, and bioinformatics to understand the molecular changes that occur during cardiac development and disease. Dr. Churko completed his graduate training in Canada under the guidance of Dr. Dale Laird (Canada Research Chair in Gap Junction Biology) and his postdoctoral training under Dr. Joseph Wu (Chair of the Cardiovascular Institute at Stanford). His laboratory specializes in generating transgene-free human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) from patients with various forms of heart disease.
Dr. Kelvin Pond is an Assistant Research Professor at the University of Arizona's Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, where he is developing patient-derived organoid technology to advance the understanding of epithelial homeostasis and single-cell kinase dynamics. His research, which integrates collaboration with machine learning specialists and bioengineers, focuses on DNA repair, genomic instability, and the development of innovative therapeutic solutions. Dr. Pond is actively establishing a new lab dedicated to these efforts.
