H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute

Biographical Information

Dr. Pledger joined Moffitt in 1994 from the department of Cell Biology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Previous positions include the post of Program Leader of the Cancer Cell Biology Program at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Areas of expertise: Basic science; functional genomics; microarray; tissue banks; cellular proliferation and differentiation.

Education: University of Houston - B.S. and M.S. in Biology from the University of Houston; Purdue University - Ph.D. in Biochemistry. Postdoctoral work completed at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and the Dana Farber Cancer Center.

Publications: Dr. Pledger is widely published in the top peer-reviewed journals of his field, including the prestigious Nature and Science.

Awards & Honors: Dr. Pledger has been an associate editor for the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, Critical Reviews in Eukaryotic Gene Expression and Cancer Research. He has served as a permanent member on NIH, ACS, and VA grant review panels and has served on numerous NIH and NCI ad hoc panels for review of Program Project Grants and Center Grants. In addition, he has served on the external advisory boards of Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center, Hollings Cancer Center, University of Oklahoma Cancer Center and the University of Tennessee Cancer Institute. In 2001, Dr. Pledger was the first recipient of Moffitt Cancer Center's Scientist of the Year Award.

Research Interests: Dr. Pledger's research interests focus on the mechanisms that regulate cellular proliferation and differentiation with special emphasis on tumor development and metastasis. His research has been seminal in our understanding of the regulation of cellular proliferation and oncogenesis. Dr. Pledger is principal investigator of the National Functional Genomics Center at Moffitt, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense in 2002.