"Adapting to a Unique Environment: the Platelet G-protein Highway to Integrin Activation"

Wolfgang Bergmeier, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics University of North Carolina School of Medicine

Wolfgang Bergmeier, PhD, is a biomedical researcher working in the fields of signal transduction, platelet biology, and hemostasis and thrombosis. He studied biology at the University of Regensburg in Germany and graduated from Witten-Herdecke University, Department of Molecular Oncology, in 2001.

For his postdoctoral studies, Bergmeier joined the laboratory of Denisa Wagner at Harvard Medical School (HMS). In 2004 he was promoted to Instructor of Pathology at the HMS. During his time there, Bergmeier studied the molecular mechanisms leading to platelet damage during extended storage and to platelet adhesion at sites of vascular injury.

In 2007, he moved to Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia where he became an Assistant Professor of Medicine and a member of the Cardeza Foundation for Hematologic Research. During his time in Philadelphia, he built an externally funded research program that investigates signaling transduction pathways critical for platelet function in hemostasis.

In 2011 Bergmeier moved his research program to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he became an Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics and a member of the McAllister Heart Institute, both in the UNC School of Medicine. His lab identified the small GTPase Rap1 and its regulators as a unique Rheostat for platelet reactivity, both in circulation and at sites of vascular injury. His ongoing work focuses on a better understanding of the platelet Rap1 signaling pathway and the implementation of his findings for the development of improved anti-platelet therapies.