College of Medicine
Upchurch Lab
Led by Gilbert Upchurch · Surgery
What we study
The Upchurch Lab studies aortic aneurysms, focusing on Pannexin-1 signaling to improve treatments. They use clinical and research approaches to advance vascular surgery.
What working here is like
- Wet lab
- Clinical
- Computational
- Mice
- Coding helps
- Projects
- 2
- Papers
- 5
Current projects
Pannexin-1 signaling in abdominal aortic aneurysms
Investigating Pannexin-1's role in abdominal aortic aneurysms to improve treatments.
Non-Professional Phagocytes have Divergent Roles in Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Formation
Researchers measured a protein called MerTK in artery cells and mice, finding that blocking it changes how these cells clear dead cells and that removing MerTK from different cell types makes aneurysms larger or smaller.
From the Spring 2025 UF Undergraduate Research Symposium · abstract book, p. 586
Summaries are written by AI in plain language from public symposium abstracts and may be imperfect.
Recent papers, explained
- Multi-class segmentation of aortic branches and zones in computed tomography angiography: The AortaSeg24 challenge
2026 · Medical Image Analysis
- Language Models for Value-Informed Proxy Decision Support
2026 · NEJM AI
Tests whether large language models can help proxies choose treatments that match patients' values.
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- Circulating PEG-indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase ameliorates diverse inflammatory diseases without toxicity or compromising immunocompetence
2026 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Builds a PEG-IDO treatment that works in five inflammatory disease models without harming immunity.
- Dementia Is Associated With Adverse Outcomes After Nonruptured Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Repair
2026 · Annals of Surgery Open
Finds higher risks for AAA repair patients with dementia, using Medicare claims.
- Selective Endovascular Aortic Repair in Connective Tissue Disease Patients Within a Multidisciplinary Program Achieves Comparable Outcomes in High-Risk Patients
2026 · Journal of Vascular Surgery
Plain-language summaries are AI-written and reviewed by us; check the paper for details.
How to reach out
Gilbert Upchurch hasn't set up this page yet. You can also look them up in the UF directory (search “Gilbert Upchurch”).