Dr. Meredith Bond

Dr. Meredith Bond obtained her B.A. from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia in 1976, and her PhD in Physiology from the Pennsylvania Muscle Institute, and the Department of Physiology, University of Pennsylvania, in 1983. She trained as a post-doctoral fellow and Research Associate with Andrew and Avril Somlyo at the University of Pennsylvania, then moved to Cleveland, OH, in 1986, to take up a position as Assistant Staff (equivalent to Assistant Professor) in the Department of Molecular Cardiology, in the Research Institute of the Cleveland Clinic. She became Associate Staff in 1992 and Staff in 2000. Dr Bond held an adjunct faculty position in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland. She has over 25 years of research, supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the American Heart Association (AHA). She was an Established Investigator of the AHA from 1991-1996, and received the AHA Research Merit Award from the Ohio Valley Affiliate, in 2002. Dr Bond's research has resulted in publication of over 55 peer-reviewed papers, 6 review articles, and 11 book chapters. Dr Bond has mentored over 30 undergraduate and medical students, 6 pre-doctoral PhD students, 19 postdoctoral fellows and served on over 15 graduate student thesis committees. She currently serves on the Molecular Medicine Graduate Student Admissions Committee and is Program Director of an NIH T32 Training Program.

Dr Bond's research focuses on understanding the molecular basis of the regulation of contractility in the heart. Studies from the Bond lab, in isolated cell cultures, in animal models of heart disease and in failing human hearts, have revealed that downstream regulation of the beta- adrenergic signaling pathway, which regulates heart rate and force of contraction, is impaired in diseased hearts. Current work in her lab focuses on the role of scaffolding proteins called "A-kinase anchoring proteins" or AKAPs, in catecholamine regulation of contraction. The work from her lab demonstrated the requirement of anchoring of cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) by AKAPs, in order to regulate activity of PKA in the heart, and the PKA phosphorylation of proteins. Recent work has provided evidence for a novel, nuclear AKAP, called chromodomain helicase binding protein 8, or Chd8, which may link PKA regulation of transcription factor activity to gene regulation.

Since 2003, Dr. Bond has chaired the Department of Physiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, one of the top ranked Physiology Departments in the US. From 2004-2005, Dr Bond served as Interim Assistant Dean for Graduate Studies. She has been an officer the Biophysical Society, American Physiological Society, American Heart Association, and International Society for Heart Research. In 2002, she was Program Chair for the Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society, and in 2009, Program Chair of the Annual Meeting of the International Society of Heart Research, North American Section. Dr. Bond is a graduate of Leadership Maryland 2007 and was nominated as one of Maryland's Top 100 women of 2008. She is past-president of the Association of Chairs of Departments of Physiology (ACDP) and is currently ACDP representative to the AAMC Council of Academic Societies (CAS).

Dr. Bond has served on NIH and AHA peer review study sections and has been a member of editorial boards of national and international scientific journals (Physiological Reviews, Journal of Biological Chemistry; American Journal of Physiology, Heart and Circulatory Physiology). In 2010, she was appointed to the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), NIH. Dr. Bond is currently a member of the Strategic Planning Committee of the University of Maryland Baltimore.