C. Jeffery Woodbury, associate professor in the Department of Zoology and Physiology
Background: B.S. Arizona State University; Ph.D. Stony Brook University (SUNY Stony Brook); assistant research professor at University of Pittsburgh; joined UW in 2003.
Why UW? “What drew me was the locale—and especially the sense that the people here were a community that really loved Laramie.”
Research: Woodbury and his team study the senses of the skin at a very detailed, single-cell level. “All of our work is in mice, so everything is extremely specialized and miniaturized to allow us to do this work.”
Skin contains many types of sensory neurons. “Each of these sensory neurons is tuned to extract only a small amount of information from the environment. Some are specialized to respond only to the movement of hairs. Some are specialized to respond only to constant indentation of the skin, some to light touch, others to heavier pressure and others to pinch. Some only respond to slight changes in temperature, whereas others only respond to temperature extremes.”
Woodbury is especially interested in how this diversity is organized, how it develops and how it changes after injury or disease. He also studies the interaction and transition between touch, which is a pleasant feeling, and pain, which is very unpleasant.
“We know there are a number of chronic pain syndromes where the distinction between those two extremes—from touch to pain— becomes blurred and even reversed. What we hope to do is examine the changes that are taking place not only in the skin but also the spinal cord, which receives all this information. We hope we can get a better understanding of what causes pain and how touch fibers can produce it.”
About the Science Initiative: “I’m most excited about modernized facilities, especially the imaging facilities. There’s also a potential for cross-fertilization by bringing all biologists together.”
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