Cardiovascular Center News
Mathi Chinnaraj, Ph.D., presented at 2018 FASEB meeting.
Mathivanan Chinnaraj, Ph.D., a Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Nicola Pozzi, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biochemistry, recently gave an oral presentation at the 2018 FASEB conference “Functional Disulfide Bonds in Health and Disease” for his work entitled “Reduced and Oxidized Conformations of Protein Disulfide Isomerase Revealed by Single-Molecule FRET.”
Mathi also received a travel award to the meeting, which took place at The National Conference Center in Leesburg, VA.
Dave Ford, Ph.D., awarded two NIH grants.
Dr. Ford, Professor of Biochemistry, has been awarded a 1-year grant from the NIGMS entitled “Neutrophil-dependent mediators of sepsis.” This project will use untargeted lipidomics to identify new mediators and prognostic biomarkers of multi-organ failure during sepsis.
Dr. Ford has also been awarded a supplement to the NIGMS award entitled “Chlorinated lipids in sepsis.” This grant is an equipment supplement to purchase a high resolution mass spectrometer.
Former Butler Lab postdoc invited to present publication.
A paper submitted to the journal, Obesity, by Clemence Girardet, Ph.D, a former post-doc in the Butler laboratory, was selected for presentation in the Obesity Journal Symposium at this year’s ObesityWeek meeting in Nashville, TN.
The Editors of the journal selected five papers providing insights into preventing and treating obesity. An author from each paper was invited to give a 10-minute oral presentation, and the papers will be featured in a special section of the December 2018 issue of Obesity.
Dr. Girardet’s paper examines the role of the melanocortin-3 receptor (MC3R) expressed on critical neurons regulating feeding behavior in the nervous system. MC3R mutations have been linked to childhood obesity, particularly in the African-American population.
Dr. Girardet is now an Assistant Professor at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris France.
Andrew Butler, Ph.D., and Susan Farr, Ph.D., receive NIH grant.
Dr. Butler, Professor of Pharmacology & Physiology, and Dr. Farr, Professor of Medicine, were awarded a 2-year grant from the NINDS entitled “Role of Adropin in Maintaining Cognitive Function.”
Certain heart disease risk factors in midlife, such as obesity, diabetes, elevated blood pressure, and smoking cigarettes, also associate with an increased risk for developing dementia.
Anutosh Chakraborty, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Pharmacology & Physiology, is a Co-Investigator on the Award.
Jung Huang, Ph.D., will organize meeting and give keynote speech.
Jung Huang, Ph.D. will be organizing the 2nd International Symposium on TGF-β and Human Diseases.
He has also been invited to give a keynote speech at an international conference in Shanghai, China, in October 2018 on “TGF-β Enhancers and Antagonists in the Prevention and Management of Human Diseases.”
Dan Pike receives F30 award from the NIH.
Dan, an M.D./Ph.D. student in the Ford Lab, was awarded an F30 Ruth L. Kirschstein Individual Predoctoral National Research Service Award for M.D./Ph.D. and Dual Degrees Fellowship from the NIH for his project entitled “Plasmalogen-derived chlorinated lipids: Mediators of acute lung injury during sepsis.”
The Kirschstein-NRSA award is given to promising predoctoral students in dual degree programs who plan on careers as physician-scientists in order to enhance their research and clinical training.
Congratulations to Elisa Palladino and Celine Hartman.
Elisa and Celine were both selected to receive travel awards for the Experimental Biology 2018 meeting in San Diego, CA.
They were both graduate students in the Ford lab at the time of the meeting in April, and have each recently completed their Ph.D. degrees.