Kari Ekenstedt, DVM, PhD Canine genetic health; naturally-occurring diseases such as musculoskeletal, neurologic and ophthalmic conditions.
Current project: Investigating ectrodactyly, spinal abnormalities, dwarfism, pigmentary uveitis, cranial cruciate ligament rupture, hypomyelination polyneuropathy, "hidden" coat color alleles, and others.
Marxa L. Figueiredo, PhD Osteoimmunology; gene and drug delivery for modulating interactions between bone and immune system for treating cancer and arthritis.
Current Projects: 1) Gene delivery, using ultrasound-mediated sonoporation strategies to express targeted osteo-immune cytokines for restoring bone and immune cell homeostasis; 2) Stem cell delivery, exploring the therapeutic ability of adipose-derived mesenchymal/stromal stem cells to deliver the pro-osteogeneic and antiangiogenic Pigment Epithelium-Derived Factor; 3) Role of small molecules for pharmacological interventions for mediating joint cartilage and bone repair
Jessica S. Fortin, DVM, PhD Working to discover new treatments for Alzheimer's disease (amyloid-beta and hyperphosphorylated tau), Parkinson's disease (alpha-synuclein), and Type 2 Diabetes (islet amyloid polypeptide).
Current Project: Delivering anatomical content in interactive mobile formats.
Adam Kimbrough, PhD Neurobiology of addiction: Understanding changes that occur in the brain during the transition to substance use disorder and improving our knowledge of the motivation for excessive drug use.
Current Projects: Neural networks and circuits involved in excessive alcohol drinking; understanding brain activity associated with oxycodone withdrawl; determining the neural mechanisms of polysubstance use disorder; understanding the impact of alcohol drinking on neurodegenerative disease.
Susan M. Mendrysa, PhD Tumor suppressor, p53; oncogene, MDM2; cancer cell biology; pediatric brain cancer; regulation of cell fate decisions; cerebellar development.
Current projects: Elucidating the role of MDM2, a critical negative regulator of the p53 tumor suppressor, in cerebellar development and tumorigenesis; exploiting genetically modified mice in combination with cell culture models to place MDM2 and p53 within the molecular signaling pathways that govern neuronal differentiation and cell fate decisions.
Abdelfattah Y.M. Nour, DVM, MS, PhD Interactive and e-learning; food security in poor households; physiological biomarkers; growth and development.
Current Projects: Educational research focus on information literacy, team-based learning (e.g. Study the Effectiveness of Implementing Team Building Strategies Program for Nursing-Interns by Using Team- Based), social networking and learning; effectiveness of teaching the clinical administrative course by using computer-based training in developing nurse intern administrative knowledge and skills; Small ruminants for food security in poor households in Africa: The role of women's cooperatives and entrepreneurship; effects of drug-induced renal damage on CBC, biochemical profile of the serum, and kidneys histopathological changes in experimental rats; study of the possible association between some of the uremic toxins and allergic factors in hemodialysis patients suffering from pruritus; histological and ultra-structural studies of the major endocrine glands of Nile tilapia (in relation to Age and Weight).
J. Paul Robinson, PhD Development of portable diagnostic instruments - focus in the area of bioengineering; cytomic-bioengineering interface.
Current Projects: Creating new tools for the identification of food-borne pathoges; Using new approaches to intefrated spectrcopy for rapid identification of pathogens, small molecules, cytokines, etcthey ge.
Riyi Shi, PhD Uncovering the mechanisms of central nervous system trauma and diseases and instituting new treatments through innovative experimentation and pioneering new stragegies in this field.
Current Projects: Using nanotechnology to improve drug delivery to nervous tissue and incorporating biomedical engineering principles to enhance neuronal repair and diagnosis which includes designing innovative scaffolds to enhance neuronal regeneration and using bioadhesives for neuronal tissue repair
Ranjie Xu, PhD Creating human stem cell models to investigate the underlying mechanisms for human neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease and autism, and developing therapeutic interventions for these disorders.
Current projects: Project 1. Disease modeling: developing human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) stem cell-based 3D in vitro brain organoids and human-mouse chimeric brain models to investigate human neurons, microglia, vasculatures, and their interactions in neurological disorders. Project 2. Drug Development: applying the established model for screening drugs. Project 3. Cell therapy: engineering hPSC-derived neural and immune cells to develop innovative cell therapies to treat neurological disorders
