In 2006, he served as a visiting scientist for the molecular and integrative physiology program at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Mass. Gerthoffer also worked at the laboratory of molecular cardiology at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

Gerthoffer earned his bachelor of science in biology at Waynesburg College in Waynesburg, Penn., and his medical degree in pharmacology from West Virginia University in Morgantown, W. Va.

He completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and served as a research associate in the department of physiology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va.

Gerthoffer’s review “Mechanisms of vascular smooth muscle cell migration” appeared in Circulation Research in March 2007. The review describes proteins and processes that cells use to move through their environment, which is important in cardiovascular and respiratory diseases when blood vessels or airways remodel during atherosclerosis and obstructive airways diseases.

His previous work on protein kinases and protein phosphorylation of contractile, cytoskeletal and stress proteins reflect his broad interest in molecular mechanisms by which smooth muscle cells adapt to the chemical and mechanical environment in organs such as blood vessels, airways and the gastrointestinal system.