Faculty Biographies

Dr. Daniel Kainer earned his doctorate in Cell Biology from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. He has an M.S. in microbiology from Texas Tech and a BS in psychology and philosophy from the University of Houston. His postdoctral studies at the University of Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health involved invesitigating the genetics of obesity. He assisted in developing a high-throughput, mass spectrometry, and PCR-based genotyping assay for evaluating obesity genes.

During his career, Dr. Kainer has published research done at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center on the genetics of hypertension, as well as articles about PCR methods used in enzyme kinetics.

Dr. Kainer has been teaching in some capacity since 1990: as a graduate teaching assistant, high school science teacher, or as a college level science instructor. Committed to maintaining his skills through continuing educational endeavors, Dr. Kainer was involved in a research internship at an area biotechnology company in 2003 where he investigated the applications of two-dimensional electrophoresis.

Lawrence D. Loomis-Price, Ph.D.

Dr. Larry Loomis-Price is the newly appointed Director of the Biotechnology Institute at LSC-Montgomery. He joins the college after working for fifteen years as a government researcher and consultant. In addition, he has taught at the associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s levels at programs across the United States.

Dr. Loomis-Price received his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating, he joined the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington D.C. as a research biochemist in the Army’s malaria vaccine group. After three years he moved to the newly formed Division of Retrovirology at Walter Reed to begin studies on the immunology of HIV and work on developing potential vaccines against HIV/AIDS. After finishing his military service in 1991, he worked as a principal investigator with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation in Rockville, MD. With the Jackson Foundation he was able to continue research on HIV immunology and worked on several human trials of HIV/AIDS vaccines. This research was carried on jointly in the United States and Thailand. Dr. Loomis-Price has published extensively in scientific journals on protein biochemistry and immunology, especially as they relate to HIV vaccine development. He has worked for several years as a consultant in these fields.

Dr. Loomis-Price began his teaching career while he was an undergraduate himself. He worked as both a teaching and a research assistant while finishing up his bachelor’s degrees at MIT, in Boston. He continued teaching, at both the undergraduate and graduate level, while at Berkeley. During his research career he instructed at Walter Reed’s Military Medical Fellowship, and taught as an adjunct professor in the Biotechnology program at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. During this time he coauthored a study guide for a popular biochemistry text. He taught chemistry for several semesters as an adjunct professor at LSC-Montgomery before joining the program full-time.

Dr. Loomis-Price is dedicated to bridging the gap between the academic and business worlds. His experience in the biotechnology community makes him acutely aware of the specific educational needs of students planning on entering this vital, growing field. He is committed to the idea of life-long learning and still enjoys taking classes as much as teaching them.

Gayle LoPiccolo
 
Ms. LoPiccolo received both of her Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts degrees from Western Michigan University.  She has work experience in both academic and research fields.  Her academic experience includes teaching in secondary education schools in Colorado as well as in a community college in the Dallas area.  She was a Research Associate in Microbiology Department at Louisiana State University where her duties included operating and maintaining an electron microscope (EM) as well as teaching graduate students EM lab techniques. Ms. LoPiccolo also worked at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Dallas, Texas performing radioimmunoassays.
 
At LSC-Montgomery she is currently serving as the Honors Program Co-Director and has been a Co-Director or the Director since the program began in the spring, 2001 semester.  She is also Co-Department Chair in the Natural Science & Health Professions (NASH) Division where she is responsible for the Microbiology, Anatomy & Physiology, and Biotechnology areas of the division.  She was recently honored, by her peers, as one of the recipients of the Montgomery College Teaching Excellence Awards.
 
Ms. LoPiccolo has done internships in the summers to update her research skills at M. D. Anderson in Houston and at ProteEX in the Woodlands.