Phillip Kramer

Phillip Kramer’s lab focuses on two subject areas. First is how hormone levels (directly and indirectly) lead to changes in immune reactions and pain responses in the temporomandibular joint. Varied sources of evidence support the idea that sex hormones regulate the immune response in patients with auto-immune disorders. Second is the use of mesenchymal stem cells or multipotent adult progenitor cells for repair or replacement of damaged tissues in the oral cavity. Our goal is to determine the stem cells' potential to differentiate into specific oral cell types and determine the mechanistic processes by which these stem cells transform. His most recent grant funding involves studying the role of estrogen in modulating the pain in the TMJ, and sex steroids and TMJ pain. He is a professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences in the College of Dentistry and a member of the Texas A&M Graduate Faculty. He earned a BS in biochemistry/cell biology from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and a PhD in biochemistry from Texas A&M’s Institute of Biosciences and Technology. He held a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular biology at Texas A&M’s Institute of Biosciences and Technology and in neuroendocrinology at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD.