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Gloria M. Conover, PhD

Gloria M Conover
Gloria M Conover, PhD

Instructional Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Education

Director, Academic Affairs, Office of Medical Student Research Education

Contact

Medical Education
8447 John Sharp Parkway
Health Professions Education Building
Bryan, TX 77807
gconover@tamu.edu
Phone: 979.436.0215

Biography

Dr. Gloria M. Conover is the Director of the Office of Medical Student Research Education (OMSRE) and
an Instructional Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Education at Texas A&M College of
Medicine.

Dr. Conover received a bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from Wellesley College and a
Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Microbiology from the School of Medicine at Tufts University. She was a
NIH postdoctoral fellow in Cell Biology at the University of Arizona prior to moving to Texas A&M
University as a Research Assistant Professor in 2008.

In 2018, she was selected as the first Director for Medical Student Research at Texas A&M University. In
2019, she founded the Medical Scholar Research Pathway Program (MSRPP), a formal yet voluntary
research program designed for medical students, which has over 100 accepted students to date. Her office
provides research programs to pre-clerkship and clerkship medical students in 5 clinical sites of the School
of Medicine (Bryan-College Station, Round Rock, Houston, and Dallas).

In addition to the Medical Scholar Research Pathway Program (MSRPP), she created the MSRPP Fellows
internship program for students to conduct full-time research during their M1/M2 summer, and the PEERs
mentorship program to support medical students in research and scholarship. Throughout the year, her
office runs multiple educational initiatives to foster research practice with students participating in annual
conferences (Medical Research Colloquium, Senior Research Showcase), and monthly seminar series
(MSRPP student Launch and mentor talks). OMSRE incentivizes students presentation of research projects
at national meetings by offering competitive bi-annual travel awards (Medical Research Travel Award).
Dr. Conover chairs the Medical Student Research Faculty Advisory Committee (MSRAC) that seeks the
support from its faculty members representing stakeholders across our multi-campus community-based
Medical School. She teaches (as a course director) three innovative electives (MHUM 823, MEID 820, and
MEID 830) that she established to integrate the pre-clerkship curriculum into the clerkship curriculum.
She is currently working with MSRAC faculty for the approval of the Scholarly Research Distinction (SRD)
for medical students that wish to engage in research longitudinally for four years.

Dr. Conover strongly believes that coaching students in a personalized, formal research program that has
delineated milestones supports their pursuit of life-long research and scholarship. Participation in these
formal research programs at the undergraduate medical education (UME) level, gives medical students
the necessary skills to form collaborative research groups, and opens opportunities for them to
incorporate research in their future clinical practices and impact patient healthcare outcomes.
During her time at the College of Medicine, Dr. Conover has been recognized for her accomplishments by
obtaining the Early Career Educator Award for her appreciation, enthusiasm, and commitment to the
teaching mission. Her research in medical education is funded by the Texas A&M Academy of
Distinguished Medical Educators and the Texas A&M Presidential Transformational Teaching grant.

Education and Training

  • Tufts University Medical School, Boston, MA , Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Microbiology, 1996-2003
  • Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, B.A. in Biological Sciences, 1992-1996

Professional Certifications

  • Harvard University VPAL CRISPR: Gene-editing Applications online short course
  • Knowledge of the Fundamental of Team Based Learning (TBL) Certificate. Awarded by Team-Based Learning Collaborative (TBLC)

Research Interests

  • Dr. Conover's research interests lie in muscle cell biology with emphasis in cytoskeletal crosstalk. Specifically, she would like to define how the intermediate filament cytoskeleton simultaneously provides structural integrity, targets subcellular organelles and mediates force transmission in response to a changing cellular microenvironment. Her focus is desmin, a muscle-specific stress absorber, that mechanically and dynamically integrates the internal and external subcellular architecture of cardiomyocytes. Mutations in desmin, cause desminopathy, a severe familial myopathy associated with progressive cardiomyopathy and skeletal muscle atrophy that often leads to heart failure and is associated with cardiac sudden death.
  • Deciphering how the intermediate filament cytoskeleton coordinates its function temporally and spatially with actin and the microtubule cytoskeleton is key not only for understanding the basic cell biology of the muscle cytoskeleton, but also for tracking the pathology of mutations in desmin that are thought to be causative for familial cardiomyopathy.
  • Building on her prior work that showed that the timing of assembly of the desmin filaments is critical for appropriate binding to muscle protein partners, Dr. Conover is now interested in refining the field’s understanding on which molecular mechanisms elicit clinical disease phenotypes, in an effort to ameliorate their pathogenicity with the next generation biological therapeutics.

Memberships

  • American Society for Cell Biology

Representative Publications

Guiding Preclinical Medical Students in Finding, Synthesizing, and Communicating Translational Basic Research Literature: Roles for Basic Science Research Mentors. Maxwell SA, Fuchs-Young R, Wells GB, Kapler GM, Conover GM, Green S, Pepper C, Gastel B, Huston DP. Acad Med. 2021 Nov 16. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000004511. Online ahead of print. PMID: 34789666

 

Development of single-cell-level microfluidic technology for long-term growth visualization of living cultures of Mycobacterium smegmatis. Wang H*, Conover GM*, Han SI, Sacchettini JC, Han A. Microsyst Nanoeng. 2021 May 20;7:37. doi: 10.1038/s41378-021-00262-1. eCollection 2021. PMID: 34567751 Co-first authors

 

Desmoplakin interacts with the coil 1 of different types of intermediate filament proteins and displays high affinity for assembled intermediate filaments. Favre B, Begré N, Bouameur JE, Lingasamy P, Conover GM, Fontao L, Borradori L. PLoS One. 2018 Oct 4;13(10):e0205038. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205038. eCollection 2018. PMID: 30286183

 

Allostery revealed within lipid binding events to membrane proteins. Patrick JW, Boone CD, Liu W, Conover GM, Liu Y, Cong X, Laganowsky A. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Mar 20;115(12):2976-2981. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1719813115. Epub 2018 Mar 5. PMID: 29507234

 

αB-crystallin is a sensor for assembly intermediates and for the subunit topology of desmin intermediate filaments. Sharma S, Conover GM, Elliott JL, Der Perng M, Herrmann H, Quinlan RA. Cell Stress Chaperones. 2017 Jul;22(4):613-626. doi: 10.1007/s12192-017-0788-7. Epub 2017 May 3. PMID: 28470624

 

Nebulette is a powerful cytolinker organizing desmin and actin in mouse hearts. Hernandez DA, Bennett CM, Dunina-Barkovskaya L, Wedig T, Capetanaki Y, Herrmann H, Conover GM. Mol Biol Cell. 2016 Dec 1;27(24):3869-3882. doi: 10.1091/mbc.E16-04-0237. Epub 2016 Oct 12. PMID: 27733623

 

Nebulin binding impedes mutant desmin filament assembly. Baker LK, Gillis DC, Sharma S, Ambrus A, Herrmann H, Conover GM. Mol Biol Cell. 2013 Jun;24(12):1918-32. doi: 10.1091/mbc.E12-11-0840. Epub 2013 Apr 24. PMID: 23615443

 

The desmin coil 1B mutation K190A impairs nebulin Z-disc assembly and destabilizes actin thin filaments. Conover GM, Gregorio CC. J Cell Sci. 2011 Oct 15;124(Pt 20):3464-76. doi: 10.1242/jcs.087080. Epub 2011 Oct 7. PMID: 21984811

 

A myopathy-linked desmin mutation perturbs striated muscle actin filament architecture. Conover GM, Henderson SN, Gregorio CC. Mol Biol Cell. 2009 Feb;20(3):834-45. doi: 10.1091/mbc.e08-07-0753. Epub 2008 Nov 12. PMID: 19005210

 

Legionella pneumophila EnhC is required for efficient replication in tumour necrosis factor alpha-stimulated macrophages. Liu M, Conover GM, Isberg RR. Cell Microbiol. 2008 Sep;10(9):1906-23. doi: 10.1111/j.1462-5822.2008.01180.x. Epub 2008 Jun 28. PMID: 18549456

 

Phosphatidylcholine synthesis is required for optimal function of Legionella pneumophila virulence determinants. Conover GM, Martinez-Morales F, Heidtman MI, Luo ZQ, Tang M, Chen C, Geiger O, Isberg RR. Cell Microbiol. 2008 Feb;10(2):514-28. doi: 10.1111/j.1462-5822.2007.01066.x. Epub 2007 Nov 2. PMID: 17979985

 

The DotL protein, a member of the TraG-coupling protein family, is essential for Viability of Legionella pneumophila strain Lp02. Buscher BA*, Conover GM*, Miller JL, Vogel SA, Meyers SN, Isberg RR, Vogel JP. J Bacteriol. 2005 May;187(9):2927-38. doi: 10.1128/JB.187.9.2927-2938.2005. PMID: 15838018 *Co-first authors

 

The Legionella pneumophila LidA protein: a translocated substrate of the Dot/Icm system associated with maintenance of bacterial integrity. Conover GM, Derré I, Vogel JP, Isberg RR. Mol Microbiol. 2003 Apr;48(2):305-21. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2958.2003.03400.x. PMID: 12675793