Rebekah Gundry, PhD, was recruited to UNMC in 2019, after nine years at the Medical College of Wisconsin and after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at

Johns Hopkins University, where she studied mass spectrometry in cardiovascular research. The Wisconsin native received an initial investment package that included $769,000 in tobacco settlement dollars to further study diseases of the heart and serve as professor and vice chair of the UNMC Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology and inaugural director of the CardiOmics Program, which fosters research that leads to improved clinical cardiovascular medicine and patient care.

Today, Dr. Gundry is principal investigator on grants totaling $20.3 million. Her portfolio and impact expand further when considering her prior funding, other current grants that the CardioOmics program supports and the leadership roles she holds. Among her many achievements, Dr. Gundry is director of the UNMC Center for Heart and Vascular Research, and principal investigator of an $11.8 million Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) award from the National Institutes of Health. The COBRE award elevates UNMC’s reputation for outstanding heart and vascular disease research, and enables UNMC to develop the next generation of outstanding heart and vascular disease investigators.

Since its founding in 2019, the Center for Heart and Vascular Research has helped UNMC cardiologist Dan Anderson, MD, expand a one-of-a-kind repository for collecting heart and vascular tissue and blood for research, provided funding to early career faculty, and implemented multiple programs to educate its members about cutting-edge approaches and promote new collaborations across departments and institutions.

When asked how her work directly impacts Nebraskans, Dr. Gundry replied, “Heart disease is the leading cause of death in Nebraska, and many patients would benefit from personalized approaches that address their unique needs. UNMC provides a unique environment for research not possible elsewhere – we have the perfect combination of clinicians, surgeons, technology transfer specialists and researchers to bring our technologies and applications to life for the benefit of Nebraskans, and beyond.

“In collaboration with Dr. Anderson, our research is directly studying the hearts of Nebraska patients. In doing that, we are uncovering new molecules in the heart that can effectively serve as mapping agents to help physicians deliver therapies to the right place. With the support of UNeMed, we are beginning to work with companies who have expressed interest in further developing our innovative technology pipelines and discoveries into new therapeutics. Our research is truly of Nebraskans and for Nebraskans.”

Dr. Gundry’s research work continues to excel and impress. She is one of only a few scientists nationwide, and the first at UNMC, to receive an NHLBI Emerging Investigator Award, which requires applicants to be principal investigator on two active R01-equivalent awards at the time of application. In 2023, she was named UNeMed’s Emerging Inventor in recognition
of her innovations and accomplishments in the field
of mass spectrometry, bioinformatics and the cell surfaceome. She also is an inventor on two new inventions over the past five years and has licensed one of her technologies to industry.

At UNMC, Dr. Gundry has become one of UNMC’s research leaders. In addition to leading the COBRE, she serves as the Stokes-Shackleford professor, chair of the UNMC Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology and scientific director of UNMC’s Multiomics Mass Spectrometry Core Facility.