University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston

Program Director
Anthony O. Okorodudu, PhD, MMCS, MBA, DABCC, FADLM
Professor, Pathology and Director, Clinical Chemistry Division
aookorod@utmb.edu
(409) 772-3309

About the Program

The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston opened in 1891 as the nation’s first public medical school and hospital under unified leadership—already a pioneer. What began as one hospital and medical school building in Galveston is now a major academic health sciences center of global influence, with medical, nursing, health professions and graduate biomedical schools; a world-renowned research enterprise; and a growing, comprehensive health system with hospitals on four campuses and a network of clinics. Today, UTMB has a $3.3 billion annual statewide economic impact, in terms of business volume, personal income and durable goods purchases. More than 46,000 jobs in Texas are directly or indirectly attributed to UTMB. The health system has approximately 900 beds in all the campuses with full-service emergency rooms/trauma centers. Postdoctoral training in clinical chemistry will be entirely completed within the UTMB Health system. The patient population at UTMB is excellent with a full range of pediatric and adult medical and surgical cases.

Postdoctoral fellows will train with pathology residents. Responsibilities include seminars, selected medical lectures, journal club, selected topics in laboratory management, night call and clinical rounds. Management experience is incorporated into both years of training. Fellows also present lectures in selected topics, participate in the division’s director On-Call Service, and are assigned specific sections of the laboratory where they have technical responsibilities.

Special strengths of the UTMB program include scheduled didactic lectures, diagnostic management team, ward rounds, and scheduled rotation through all areas of the laboratory in the first six months, yearly in-service examinations, and use of state-of-the-art instrumentation. The fellows are also required to be involved in basic and applied research projects with focus in the areas of intracellular ions homeostasis, molecular toxicology, pharmacogenomics, and liver cancer.

Program Requirements

To be considered for the program, prospective fellows must have:

1. Doctoral or medical degree(s) in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, medicine, pathology, pathobiology or pharmacology from an accredited university.
2. Minimum of 30 semester hours (undergraduate or graduate level) of coursework in analytical, inorganic, organic, physical, and biochemistry to qualify for certification by the ABCC.
   • If a candidate’s academic credentials are obtained outside the United States, they must be deemed equivalent by an appropriate education evaluation agency.

To Apply

Apply by October 15 of the year preceding the July starting date. Please submit your application packet to the program director, Anthony O. Okorodudu.

The application packet must include:

1. Letter of interest
2. Curriculum vitae
3. Three letters of recommendation
4. Transcripts (undergraduate and graduate)

Training Level

Postdoctoral Training Level
Number of positions available per year: 1 every other year
Duration of program: 2 years
Approximate annual salary or stipend: PGY Scale
Source of funding: Departmental
Current number of trainees: 1
Number of past graduates: 20

Faculty

Karl E. Anderson, MD	Human Porphyria, especially the interaction of genetic and environmental factors and development of new treatments for these conditions
Michael Laposata, MD, PhD	Laboratory management, test utilization, (particularly as it relates to coagulation studies), identification of diagnostic errors and mechanisms to prevent them, and fatty acid biochemistry
Peter McCaffrey, MD	Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Biomedical Informatics, Computational Biology
Anthony O. Okorodudu, PhD, MBA, MMCS, DABCC, FADLM	General Clinical Chemistry, Toxicology and TDM; Perturbation of intracellular cations in response to drugs/diseases; research and development to support introduction of new diagnostic systems