Cristina Artalejo
Biography
Cristina Artalejo, M.D., Ph.D. is an Associate Professor (Research Educator), tenured in the Department of Pharmacology at Wayne State University School of Medicine.
Dr. Artalejo has 30+ years of research experience in the area of Neuroscience. Over the last 30 years, Dr. Artalejo’s laboratory has embarked on ambitious programs combining molecular, electrophysiological, and biochemical approaches to understand the mechanism of secretion in neurons and neuroendocrine cells. She has many years of experience employing high resolution single vesicle amperometric and capacitance techniques in combination with introduction of various reagents into the cell via the patch pipette to disrupt or enhance the activity of specific proteins thought to be involved in the secretory cycle. Since joining the faculty in 1996, Dr. Artalejo’s research has been funded through the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Human Science Frontier. She has published high-profile papers in top-tier journals including Nature, Neuron, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The EMBO Journal, Journal of Neuroscience, Neurobiology of Aging, and Neuroscience.
Since January 2016, Dr. Artalejo in collaboration with Dr. Tisdale, a colleague in the Department of Pharmacology, have started several new projects in the area of autophagy, cell signaling, and membrane trafficking. The ongoing research is focused on identifying and characterizing the molecular players and membrane compartments in the early secretory pathway with special emphasis on understanding how dysfunction contributes to human diseases. These research have been funded through the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, and American Cancer Society.
Dr. Artalejo is passionate about teaching (it is her “mission”). In her 28 years at WSU, Dr. Artalejo have participated in team-taught courses as well as created several new graduate level courses that have been well received. She has provided extensive teaching to Year 1 and Year 2 Medical students, Graduate (Ph.D. and M.S.), and Advanced undergraduate students. For medical education, she has served as a facilitator for Pharmacovigilance small group sessions (M1 PV and M2 PV), Problem Based Learning (M1 PBL and M2 PBL), and the course “Patient, Population, Physician, & Professionalism” (M1 P4 and M2 P4). In regard to graduate instruction, from 2016 through 2023, Dr. Artalejo was co-course/course director and instructor for PHC7010, “Introductory Pharmacology” (4-credit), and she gave many lectures (20 lectures in 2023). From 2017 through 2022, she was course director and instructor for PHC 6500, “Drugs and the Addictive Process,” a 3-credit hour elective. PHC 6500 was an extremely popular course that she taught every Fall, and always since early May the registration was closed because the course was full. Dr. Artalejo has created and developed/co-developed several PHC 7650 Advanced Topics Courses: “Molecules that Changed the World”, “Stories Behind the Drugs We Use”, “Drugs that Changed History”, “Ethical Dilemmas in Science and Technology: How Controversies Affect Society”, “Fact and Fraud: What Effect does Scientific Misconduct have on the Public?” Graduate students ask her to serve as their BMS essay advisor or committee member (55 since 2017). Dr. Artalejo is committed to provide the best teaching and training to the medical/graduate students and as such to contribute to the teaching mission of WSU School of Medicine. She was selected and participated in the Stanford Faculty Development Program in Medical Teaching as well took many courses from WSU Office of Teaching Learning to improve and keep up to date on teaching methods.
Dr. Artalejo has been a WSU SOM Faculty for 28 years and a Faculty at several other Universities. During those years, she has served in many departmental, School of Medicine, and University committees. Dr. Artalejo is currently serving her fourth year as Member-at-Large on the SOM Executive Committee (2027).
Office Address
540 E. Canfield St.
6133 Scott Hall
Detroit MI, 48201
Education/Training
M.D. from Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain (1983).
Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain (1986).
POSTGRADUATE TRAINING:
Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Dominic Aunis, Unite INSERM, Centre de Neurochimie du CNRS, Strasbourg, France (1986 -1988).
Visiting Scientist in the laboratory of Dr. Aaron P. Fox, Department of Pharmacological and Physiological Sciences, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (1989 -1993).
Visiting Scientist in the laboratory of Dr. Erwin Neher, 1991 Nobel laureate in Medicine at the Max-Planck Institut Fur Biophysikalische Chemie, Gottingen, Germany (1989).
Visiting Scientist in the laboratory of Dr. Erwin Neher, 1991 Nobel laureate in Medicine at the Max-Planck Institut Fur Biophysikalische Chemie, Gottingen, Germany (1993).
Visiting Scientist in the laboratory of Dr. Erwin Neher, 1991 Nobel laureate in Medicine at the Max-Planck Institut Fur Biophysikalische Chemie, Gottingen, Germany (1997).
FACULTY APPOINTMENTS:
Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Autonomus University (U.A.M.), Medical School, Madrid, Spain (1988 - 1996).
Assistant Professor, Department of Neurobiology and Physiology, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois (1993 - 1996).
Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacology, Wayne State University, School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan (1996).
Associate Professor with tenure, Department of Pharmacology, Wayne State University, School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan (2001- present).
Office Phone
313-577-1646
Honors and Awards
Wayne State University School of Medicine College Teaching Award (2019).
“The Kamran S. Moghissi, M.D. Endowed Faculty Award for Excellence in Basic Science Teaching.” (2022). This award is given “….annually to a faculty member who, through long and meritorious teaching of basic sciences, has left a mark of excellence and provided students with a critical understanding of the faculty member's discipline. The purpose of the award is to recognize faculty achievement, to encourage continued progress and to provide assistance to faculty who demonstrate significant contributions to the teaching of basic science courses during the first two years in the School of Medicine.”
Research
Dr. Artalejo is an internationally recognized neuroscientist with expertise in electrophysiology to understand the molecular regulation of vesicle retrieval and recycling following neurotransmitter release.
Dr. Artalejo’s research interests include:
- Termination of the secretory response: different forms of endocytosis;
- Rapid endocytosis, slow endocytosis and their regulation;
- Role of dynamin, calcium, calmodulin and calcineurin in the different forms of endocytosis;
- Role of CAPS protein in exocytosis;
- Modeling of pore formation and role of fusion proteins;
- Novel EGFR pathways visualized by membrane capacitance measurements in epithelial cells from a broad variety of tissues;
- New EGFR pathways with potential cancer-specific targets for triple negative breast cancer therapy;
- Membrane trafficking in the early secretory pathway.
Publications
Peer Reviewed
Original Publications
Tisdale, E.J., and Artalejo, C.R., (2023), Rab2 Stimulates LC3 Lipidation on Secretory Membranes by Noncanonical Autophagy, Experimental Cell Research, 429:113635.
In January 2024, this paper was featured in Medicine Innovates series. Medicine Innovates news series, only highlights timely, high-impact papers of broad interest. Papers featured gain a great deal of visibility and increase in citations since they are seen by over 750,000 researchers each month.
medicineinnovates.com/rab2-revealed-deciphering-golgis-role-cancer-lens-noncanonical-autophagy/
Book Chapters
Tisdale, E.J., and Artalejo, C.R., (2024). Chapter No. 18: Atg8ylation at the ERGIC-Golgi interface. In: Atg8ylation and its Manisfestations ed. Vojo Deretic, Cambridge Scholars Pub. 2024. In Press.