Administration
Munroe-Meyer Institute
985450 Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha, NE 68198-5450
Phone: 402-559-6689
Email
Professional Summary:
Maurice Godfrey was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Monmouth College in West Long Branch, New Jersey and graduate degrees, including the PhD in Pathobiology and Immunology from Columbia University in New York. He did a postdoctoral fellowship with the late David Hollister at the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children and the Oregon Health Sciences University in Oregon. He has been a Graduate Faculty Fellow and Professor at the Munroe-Meyer Institute of the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha for more than twenty years. He spent a year as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Human Genetics of the University of Ghent, Belgium. With his late mentor he pioneered immunohistochemical and molecular studies in the Marfan syndrome. Among his awards, Dr. Godfrey has been recognized as a Basil O’Connor Scholar of the March of Dimes and Established Investigator of the American Heart Association. He also received the Antoine Marfan Award of the National Marfan Foundation; the Chief Standing Bear Organizational Award from the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs; the UNeMed Corporation Research Innovation Award from the University of Nebraska; Friend of American Indian Education from the Nebraska Department of Education, and the Friend of Science Award from the Nebraska Academy of Sciences. He has been funded by the American Heart Association, National Marfan Foundation, March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, Nebraska Department of Education, and the National Institutes of Health. He has published numerous papers and book chapters and presented his research at meetings worldwide. His passion for mentoring and education America’s youth began early in his training. High school and college undergraduate he has mentored are now physicians, scientists, pharmacists, and other professionals from coast to coast. Since 2005 he has led a National Institutes of Health program to bring science to schools and communities on Indian reservations in Nebraska and South Dakota. Dr. Godfrey also teaches courses in molecular biology, genetics and molecular basis of human disease.
Education:
PhD, Columbia University, New York, NY, 1986
M.Phil., Columbia University, New York, NY, 1983
M.A., Columbia University, New York, NY, 1980
BS, Monmouth College, West Long Branch, NJ, 1977
Courses Taught:
Biochemistry 512 and 514
BRTP 822
Cytogenetics 912, "Molecular Biology"
Molecular and Cellular Biology 842
Molecular Basis of Human Disease PAMM 940
Molecular Basis of Human Disease
UNMC High School Alliance Genetics Course
Research Interests and Projects:
- National Cancer Institute (P30 CURE Supplement) Engaging Native American Students in Cancer Research.
- National Institutes of Health (OD) "Building Bridges: Health Science Education in Native American Communities.”
- American Society of Human Genetics "Luck of the Draw:” An Ethics Values Game
- National Institutes of Health (NHGRI) "National DNA Day Program”
- Nebraska Commission for Postsecondary Education "Expansion of Science Teacher Workshops for Rural Nebraska"
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation "Summer Medical and Dental Education Program."
- Nebraska Department of Education "Rural academic secondary school science partnership."
- National Marfan Foundation "Doxycycline versus Propranolol: Effects on aneurysms in a Marfan mouse."
- University of Nebraska Medical Center "Towards a molecular understanding of skeletal anomalies."
- American Heart Association, Nebraska Affiliate "Fibrillin-2 in cardiovascular development: A mouse model."
- University of Nebraska Medical Center "Fibrillin pathology in the Marfan syndromes."
- American Heart Association, Nebraska Affiliate "Aortic aneurysms and latent transforming growth factor beta proteins."
- March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation "Molecular basis of Marfan-like syndromes."
- National Marfan Foundation "Molecular basis of Marfan-like syndromes."
- University of Nebraska Medical Center "Modulation of fibrillin abnormalities in neonatal Marfan syndrome."
- American Heart Association, Established Investigator Award "Fibrillin and the Marfan syndrome: A connective tissue paradigm for cardiovascular Disease"
- March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation "Clinical and molecular definition of the neonatal form of the Marfan syndrome."
- National Marfan Foundation "Structural analyses of fibrillin in mutations in the Marfan syndrome."
- American Heart Association, Nebraska Affiliate "Biochemical analysis of metabolically labeled fibrillin in the Marfan syndrome."
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute "Fibrillin pathology in the Marfan syndromes."
- National Marfan Foundation "Molecular, immunochemical, and biochemical correlation of fibrillin mutations in the Marfan syndrome."
- March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation "Isolation and characterization of the fibrillin gene, candidate for the Marfan syndrome."
- University of Nebraska Medical Center "Biochemical and molecular studies in achondrogenesis-hypochondrogenesis."
- American Heart Association, Nebraska and Dakotas Affiliates, Inc. "Pathogenesis of mitral valve prolapse and annulo-aortic ectasia."
- American Heart Association, Oregon Affiliate, Inc. "Pathogenesis of mitral valve prolapse and annulo-aortic ectasia."
Publications from PubMed
Professional Affiliations:
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- American Federation for Clinical Research
- American Society of Human Genetics
- Basic Science Council of the American Heart Association
- Great Plains Clinical Genetics Society
- International Society for Matrix Biology
- New York Academy of Sciences