Faculty

Dennis R. Voelker, Ph.D.
Professor of Medicine

EDUCATION/TRAINING

Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
1972B.S.Biological Sciences

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN
1978Ph.D.Biochemistry

Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
1979-81PostdocBiochemistry

 UCD
4200 E. Ninth Ave.
Denver, CO 80262
Tel: 303.398.1300
voelkerd@njc.org

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

1973 - 1978
Graduate Research Assistant/Predoctoral Fellow, National Cancer Institute, University of Tennessee – Oak Ridge National Laboratory

1979 - 1981
Research Fellow, Department of Biological Chemistry, Harvard Medical School, and Postdoctoral Fellow of the American Cancer Society

1981 - 1988
Assistant Professor, Dept. Biochemistry, Biophysics & Genetics, Univ. Colorado Health Sci. Ctr.; Staff Member, Department of Medicine, National Jewish Center

1988 - 1995
Associate Professor, Dept. Biochemistry, Biophysics & Genetics, University of Colorado Denver; Staff Member, Dept. Medicine, National Jewish Center.

1995 - present
Professor, Dept. Biochemistry, Biophysics & Genetics, University of Colorado Denver; Staff Member, Dept. Medicine, National Jewish Center.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS (total of 105)

  1. Ogasawara, Y. and Voelker, D.R. The role of the amino-terminal domain and the collagenous region in the structure and the function of rat surfactant protein D. J. Biol. Chem. 270:19052-19058, 1995.
  2. Ogasawara, Y. and Voelker, D.R. Altered carbohydrate recognition specificity engineered into surfactant protein D reveals different binding mechanisms for phosphatidylinositol and glucosylceramide. J. Biol. Chem. 270:14725-14732, 1995.
  3. Suwabe, A., Mason, R.J. and Voelker D.R. Calcium dependent association of surfactant protein A with pulmonary surfactant: Application to simple surfactant protein A purification. Archiv. Biochem. Biophys. 327:285-291, 1996.
  4. McCormack, F. X., Pattanajitvilai, S., Stewart, J., Possmayer, F., Inchly, K. and Voelker, D.R. The cys6 intermolecular disulfide bond and the collagen-like region of rat SP-A play critical roles in interactions with alveolar type II cells and surfactant lipids. J. Biol. Chem. 272 27971-27979, 1997.
  5. McCormack, F.X., Stewart, J., Voelker, D.R., Damodarasamy, M. Alanine mutagenesis of surfactant protein A reveals that lipid binding and pH-dependent liposome aggregation are mediated by the carbohydrate recognition domain. Biochemistry 36:13963-13971, 1997.
  6. Pattanajitvilai, S., Kuroki, Y., Tsunezawa, N., McCormack, F.X., Voelker, D.R. Mutational analysis of Arg197 of rat surfactant protein A. His197 creates specific lipid uptake defects. J. Biol. Chem. 273:5702-5707, 1998.
  7. Xu, X., McCormick-Shannon, K., Voelker, D.R. and Mason, R.J. KGF increases SP-A and SP-D mRNA levels and secretion in cultured rat alveolar type II cells. Am. J. Cell Resp. Biol., 18:168-178, 1998.
  8. Trotter, P.J. Pedretti, J. Yates, R. Wu, W.-I. and Voelker, D.R. A genetic screen for amino phospholipid transport mutants identifies the phosphatidylinositol-4-kinase, Stt4p, as an essential component in phosphatidylserine transport to the Golgi/vacuole J. Biol. Chem. 273:13189-13196, 1998.
  9. Sano, H., Kuroki, Y., Honma, T. Ogasawara, Y. Sohma, H. Voelker, D.R., Akino, T. Analysis of chimeric proteins identifies the regions in the carbohydrate recognition domains of rat lung collectins that are essential for interactions with phospholipids, glycolipids, and alveolar type II cells. J. Biol. Chem. 273:4783-4789, 1998.
  10. Arbibe,, L., Koumanov, K., Vial D., Rougeot, C., Faure, G., Havet, N., Longacre, S., Vargaftig, B.B., Bereziat,. G., Voelker, D. R., Wolfe, C., Touqui, L. Generation of Lyso-phospholipids from surfactant in actue lung injury is mediated by type-II phospholipase A2 and inhibited by a direct surfactant protein A-phospholipase A2 protein interaction. J. Clinical Investigation 102, 1152-1160, 1998
  11. Tsunezawa, W. Sano, H. Sohma, H. McCormack, F.X., Voelker, D.R., and Kuroki, Y. Site-directed mutagenesis of surfactant protein A reveals dissociation of lipid aggregation and lipid uptake by alveolar type II cells. Biochim. Biophys. Acta, 1387, 433-446, 1998.
  12. Osanai, K., Mason, R.J., and Voelker, D.R. Trafficking of newly synthesized surfactant protein A in isolated rat alveolar type II cells. American J. Resp. Cell and Mol. Biol. 19, 929-935, 1998.
  13. Yu, S-H., McCormack, F.X. Voelker, D.R., and Possmayer, F. Interactions of pulmonary surfactant protein SP-A with monolayers of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine and cholesterol: roles of SP-A domains. J. Lipid Research, 40: 920-929, 1999.
  14. Sano, H., Sohma, H., Muta, T., Nomura, S-I., Voelker, D.R., and Kuroki, Y. Pulmonary surfactant protein A modulates the cellular response to smooth and rough lipopolysaccharides by interaction with CD14. J. Immunol.163: 387-395, 1999.
  15. Ferguson, J.S., Voelker, D.R., McCormack, F.X. and Schlesinger, L.S. Surfactant protein D binds to Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacilli and lipoarabinomannan via carbohydrate-lectin interactions resulting in reduced phagocytosis of the bacteria by macrophages. J. Immunol.163: 312-321, 1999.
  16. Chiba, H., Sano, H., Saitoh, M., Sohma, H., Voelker, D.R., Akino, T., and Kuroki, Y. Introduction of mannose binding protein type phosphatidylinositol recognition into pulmonary surfactant protein A. Biochemistry, 38: 7321-7331, 1999.
  17. Saitoh, M. Sano, H., Chiba, H., Sohma, H., Voelker, D.R., Akino, T., and Kuroki, Y. Importance of the carboxy terminal 25 amino acid residues of lung collectins in interactions with lipids and alveolar type II cells. Biochemistry 39: 1059-1066, 2000.
  18. Wu, W., Routt, S., Bankaitis, V., and Voelker, D.R. A new gene involved in the transport dependent metabolism of phosphatidylserine, PSTB2/PDR17, shares sequence similarity with the gene encoding the phosphatidylinositol/phosphatdylcholine transfer protein, SEC14. J. Biol. Chem. 275: 14446-14456, 2000.
  19. Sano, H., Chiba, H., Iwaki, D., Sohma, H., Voelker, D.R. and Kuroki, Y., Surfactant proteins A and D bind CD14 by different mechanisms. J. Biol. Chem. 275: 22442-22451, 2000.
  20. Osanai, K. Iguchi, M. Takahashi, K., Toga, H. Nambu, Y., Sakuma, T. Ohya, N., Shimizu, H., Fisher, J.H.and Voelker, D.R. Expression and localization of a novel rab small G protein (rab38) in the rat lung. American J. Pathology 158: 1665-1675, 2001.
  21. Allen, M.J., Voelker, D.R. and Mason, R.J. Interactions of Surfactant Proteins A and D with Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Aspergillus fumigatus. Infection and Immunity 69:2037-2044, 2001.
  22. Wu, W. and Voelker, D.R. Characterization of phosphatidylserine transport to the locus of phosphatidylserine decarboxylase 2 in permeabilized yeast. J. Biol. Chem. 276: 7114-7121, 2001.
  23. Osanai, K., Mason, R.J. and Voelker, D.R. Pulmonary surfactant phosphatidylcholine bypasses the brefeldin A sensitive compartment of rat alveolar type II cells. Biochimica Biophysica Acta 1531: 222-229, 2001.
  24. DeMartini, J.C., Bishop, J.V., Allen, T.E., Jassim, F.A., Sharp, J.M., de las Heras, M., Voelker, D.R. and Carlson, J.O. Jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus proviral clone JSRVJS7, derived from the JS7 lung tumor cell line, induces ovine pulmonary carcinoma and is integrated into the surfactant protein A gene. J. Virology 75: 4239-4246, 2001.
  25. Storey, M.K., Wu, W. and Voelker, D.R. A genetic screen for ethanolamine auxotrophs in Saccharomyces cerevisiae identifies a novel mutation in Mcd4p, a protein implicated in glycosylphosphatidylinositol anchor synthesis. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1532: 234-247, 2001.