GSBS Research Opportunities
Research Opportunities Available
Below are descriptions of research projects of faculty who are planning to accept new rotation students in the current academic year (2020-2021). This list is updated annually in the summer and may be referenced for students or others seeking a TTUHSC faculty research mentor. Importantly, rotating graduate students should take note of how likely the faculty members are to accept students into their laboratories, based on the availability of space and/or funding—or whether the experience is available for educational purposes only.
| Faculty Name | Research Area/Project Title | Keywords |
|---|---|---|
| Almodovar, Sharilyn | Molecular Mechanisms of HIV-associated Pulmonary Hypertension | HIV; pulmonary disease; humanized mouse models; CXCR4 signaling; vasculopathy |
| Altenberg, Guillermo | Structure, function and regulation of ATP-binding cassette proteins involved in cancer multi-drug resistance. Design and development of new nanoparticle nanodiscs. | ABC protein; nanodiscs; molecular mechanisms; biotechnology; drug discovery |
| Artigas, Pablo | Pathophysiological role of the non-gastric H/K pump, ion selectivity, regulation and specific inhibitor's development. Importance of Na/K pump regulation for cardiovascular and nervous systems. | Ion homeostasis, electrophysiolgy, protein biochemistry, kinases, palmitoylation, ventricular myocytes, brain slices |
| Benamar, Khalid | Pharmacology of the Analgesic and Abuse-related Effects of Opioids/Cannabinoids HIV-1-related Neuropathic Pain | drugs of abuse; analgesia; pain; HIV-1 |
| Bergeson, Susan | Medications development for treatment of Alcohol Use Disorder | Alcohol Use Disorder, bioinformatics, epigenetics, innate immune function in the CNS, medications development, molecular biology of addiction processes |
| Bhutia, Yangzom | Understanding molecular mechanisms associated with pancreatic cancer drug resistance; Identifying targets to be used either as a biomarker or as a therapeutic target to treat pancreatic/prostate cancer | pancreatic cancer; prostate cancer; biomarker; drug resistance; drug targets |
| Bobulescu, Ion Alexandru | Disturbances in renal lipid metabolism and their role in the pathogenesis of chronic kidney disease and renal cell carcinoma. Renal iron metabolism in the context of chronic kidney disease and iron supplementation. | rodent models, whole-animal physiology, renal physiology, cell culture models |
| Cornwall, Gail | Functional Amyloid in the Reproductive Tract | amyloid; spermatozoa; epididymis; extracellular quality control; protein folding |
| Cuello, Luis | Atomic description of the structural determinants underlying neuronal excitability. The elucidation of the molecular basis of ion channels-related diseases, e.g., epilepsy, long-QT syndrome and cancer with a special focus on structure-based drug discovery. | Keywords: Ion-channels, Crystallography, Electrophysiology, Neurological-disorders, Neuronal-excitability, Cancer and Drug-Discovery. |
| Dufour, Jannette | Use of Immune Privileged Sertoli Cells to Improve Treatment of Diabetes | Sertoli cells; immune privilege; transplantation; diabetes |
| Fralick, Joe | Antibiotic Resistance/Targeted Therapy | Phage Therapy, Combinatorial Chemistry, Phage Display, and anti-eptitopic peptides |
| Gittner, Lisa | The Public Health Exposome Project: Health Risk Assessment Using Big Data | Chronic Disease Risks, Prevention of Lifestyle Disease, Big Data |
| Guan, Lan | 3-D high-resolution structures of nutrient transporters | Cryo-EM, X-ray crystallography, ligand binding thermodynamics transport biochemistry, molecular microbiology |
| Guindon, Josee | Mechanisms of Modulating Acute, Chronic and Cancer Pain Pathways Using Physiological Processes, Reference Compounds, and Endocannabinoid Modulators | Inflammatory, surgical, chemotherapy and cancer pain models; behavioral pharmacology; immunohistochemistry; molecular biology |
| Hamood, Abdul | The Pathogenesis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa During Sepsis Alternative (to Antibiotics) Novel Therapies to Treat Gram-positive and Gram-negative Wound Pathogens | severe burn; systemic infection; gene expression; topical antimicrobials; Next-ScienceR; pyocins |
| Hardy, Daniel | Evolution of protein structure and function in animal fertilization. Sex differences in connective tissue maintenance and repair underlying injury susceptibility. Sperm protein biotechnology | species-specificity; molecular evolution; cell adhesion; matrix metalloproteinases; gene expression profiling |
| Jansen, Michaela | Molecular mechanisms of clinically-used drugs on neurotransmitter-gated ion channels, structure and function studies of ion channels. Structure function studies of folate transporters for development of novel cancer drugs | Membrane transport proteins; ligand binding and interactions; structure; function; neuroscience; pharmacology; cancer |
| Kang, Min | Mechanisms of Drug Resistance in Pediatric Cancers | chemoresistance; pediatric cancers; molecular pharmacology; BCL-2; MYC |
| Karamyshev, Andrey | Molecular mechanisms of human diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, protein translation regulation, gene silencing, RNA/protein quality control in health and disease | molecular and cellular biology; human diseases; neurodegenerative disorders; gene silencing; protein translation; RNA stability and degradation; non-coding RNAs |
| Lawrence, J. Josh | Neuromodulation of GABAergic Circuits in Normal and Disease States | electrophysiology; multiphoton imaging; confocal imaging; transgenic mouse technology; acetylcholine; hippocampus; neurodegenerative diseases; neurodevelopmental disorders; autism |
| Liang, Henry | Membrane protein-mediated transport and recognition performance in artificial systems; Development of novel antimicrobials with high activity, low toxicity, and target specificity; Drug delivery | antibiotics and biofilms; drug delivery; biomembranes and biomimetic membranes; membrane protein bionanotechnology |
| Nandana, Srinivas | Molecular Mechanisms of Prostate Cancer Metastasis | Mouse Models, Prostate Cancer, Bone Metastasis, Signaling Mechanisms |
| Neugebauer, Volker | Brain mechanisms of chronic pain, opioid functions, neuroinflammation and neurodegenerative disorders. | Optogenetics, multiphoton calcium imaging, confocal microscopy, electrophysiology, behavior |
| Palle, Kumar | Major research focus cancer biology and therapeutics develoopment | cancer biology; therapeutics development; ovarian cancer; breast cancer |
| Pruitt, Kevin | Screening for Novel Acetylated Proteins Involved in Tumor Promotion | cancer epigenetics; aromatase regulation; WNT signaling |
| Reddy, Hemachandra | The Molecular and Cellular Bases of Aging in Age-related Neurodegenerative Diseases | neurogenetics; mouse models; neurodegenerative diseases; aging; mitochondria; oxidative stress; mitochondrial therapeutics |
| Reynolds, Patrick | Cancer Developmental Therapeutics | childhood cancers; telomere maintenance; immunotherapy; retinoids; targeting DNA repair |
| Thomas, Jeffrey H. | Cell Shape Change and Movement in Development; Regulation of the Cytoskeleton; Src Signal Transduction | morphogenesis; embryonic development; cell shape change; actomyosin dynamics; cytoskeleton |
| Tripathi, Manisha | Understanding the Role of Tumor Microenvironment in Prostate Cancer Progression | Tumor Microenvironment, Prostate Cancer, Neuroendocrine Differentiation, Cancer Associates Fibroblasts, Tumor Associated Macrophages |
| Urbatsch, Ina | Understanding Polyspecific Drug Binding in P-glycoprotein | ABC transporter function; multi-drug resistance; genetic disease |