ONWARD AND UPWARD Meet Dr. Amy Merrill-Brugger, a promising addition to CCMB's faculty intent on further advancing craniofacial biology through translational research. Dr. Amy Merrill-Brugger joined CCMB in 2010 after an exhaustive search involving 78 applicants. She is one of two recent faculty additions to CCMB who is intent on uncovering disease mechanisms of craniofacial disorders and the subsequent advancement of therapies for detection, treatment and ultimately, the prevention of those birth defects. Dr. Merrill-Brugger received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2005 from the University of Southern California (USC), during which time she discovered a novel disease mechanism for craniosynostosis, a birth defect that causes one or more sutures (borders where the skull’s bony plates intersect) on a baby's head to close earlier than normal. This discovery led to the identification of Ephrin-A4 gene mutations in patients with unassigned craniosynostosis. In 2007, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Developmental Biology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) where she identified a unique potential of neural crest cells to autonomously control the timing of bone formation in the jaw using an avian chimeric system that draws upon the divergent maturation rates of quail and duck embryos.
Amy E. Merrill-Brugger, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC Keck School of Medicine of USC
NEW FACULTY SPOTLIGHT 32