Department News

04/2006
Parimal Chowdhury, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, was appointed as president of the Association of Scientists of Indian Origin in America (ASIOA) at the Experimental Biology meeting (EB 2006), April 1-5, 2006 in San Francisco, Calif. Chowdhury will serve a two-year term. He is also serving as president-elect for the International Society for the Prevention of Tobacco Induced Diseases (ISPTID) and will be appointed as president at the annual meeting in Hong Kong, China, Nov. 24-28, 2006.

01/2006
Michael E. Soulsby, Ph.D. has been awarded a $90,002.80 grant from NASA titled  "Circadian Rhythms in Space".

Jerry Ware, Ph.D. has been awarded a $225,000 grant from NIH/NHLBI titled "Transgenic Analysis of Platelet Receptor Expression".

12/2005
Brian Storrie, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, gave the "Invitrogen Canada Lecture" at McGill University in Montreal on Nov. 18. This lecture is an annual event sponsored by Invitrogen Canada and by the McGill University vice president for research. The title of his lecture was "Balancing Membrane Flows in the Secretory Pathway: Implications of Protein Cycling for Golgi Apparatus Maintenance and Assembly." Storrie was also a visiting professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. During his visit, he presented a seminar on Golgi apparatus assembly and maintenance.

11/2005
Parimal Chowdhury, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, was elected to serve as the vice president of the International Society for the Prevention of Tobacco-Induced Diseases (ISPTID) at its fourth international meeting, held in Athens, Greece, Sept. 30-Oct. 4, 2005. Chowdhury was also appointed as a new member of the editorial board of the World Journal of Gastroenterology. In his new capacity, Chowdhury will review 24-30 manuscripts per year.

8/10/2006
Michael C. Velarde, a PhD student in Dr. Rosie Simmen’s research group in the Department of Physiology & Biophysics, COM and Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center, Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute, was selected from a national search for outstanding senior-level graduate students to attend the First Annual National Institutes of Health (NIH) Graduate Student Research Festival to be held at the NIH campus in October 2006. The all-expense paid attendance of participants to this two-day event will allow attendees to showcase their talents and science to the NIH community through poster sessions. Michael Velarde’s research, which is supported by an NIH grant to Drs. Rosie and Frank Simmen, is titled “Gene Deletion of Klf9 in Mice Results in Aberrant Endometrial Proliferation and Myometrial Function”.  Michael Velarde is a recipient of two (2004, 2006) research awards from the UAMS’ Committee for Allocation of Graduate Student Research Fund (CAGSRF). 

4/10/2006
Kristy M. Nicks, student in the Dept. of Physiology & Biophysics at UAMS  Porter Fellowship from The American Physiological Society (APS) has been extended for another year, 2006 - 2007  to study "Molecular Mechanisms Mediating the Anabolic Effects of Inhibin A  on the Skeleton" in Dr. Dana Gaddy's laboratory.   The American Physiological Society (APS) is a nonprofit organization devoted to fostering education, scientific research, and dissemination of information in the physiological sciences.

10/4/05
Anna Shestakova, (Graduate Student in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics,  Advisor – Dr. Vladimir Lupashin, Ph.D.) has been awarded a Predoctoral Student Travel Award by the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB)  to attend the ASCB Annual Meeting in San Francisco from December 10 - 14, 2005.  

9/26/05
Lawrence E. Cornett, Ph.D., director of Arkansas INBRE and a professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics in the UAMS College of Medicine has received a five-year, $16.7 million federal grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to expand and improve biomedical research in Arkansas. The National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a division of NIH, awarded the grant through its Institutional Development Award (IDeA) program. This Arkansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) award follows a four-year, $9.3 million grant funded in 2001 to create the Arkansas Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network (BRIN).  
The new INBRE grant is intended to enhance biomedical research through support of individual research projects, state-of-the-art scientific instrumentation and new programs in biomedical education. The funds will be shared among the lead institutions, UAMS, UAF and UALR, as well as seven partner institutions that include Arkansas State University, Hendrix College, John Brown University, Lyon College, Ouachita Baptist University, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and the University of Central Arkansas. Press Release

8/17/05
Pierre Fotso, Y. Koryakina, O. Pavliv, A. B. Tsiomenko, and Vladimir Lupashin (an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics) co-authored a paper titled “Cog1p Plays a Central Role in the Organization of the Yeast Conserved Oligomeric Golgi Complex” which was recently published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry ( 2005; 280(30): 27613 - 27623.)

8/17/05
Vladimir Lupashin, Ph.D. and Elizabeth Sztul, Ph.D. (UAB) co-authored a review article titled “Golgi tethering factors” which was recently published in a special “The Golgi complex ” issue of Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Molecular Cell Research (2005; 1744 (3) 325-339).

8/17/05
Vladimir Lupashin, Ph.D. has been invited as a speaker at the Membrane traffic minisymposium at the European Life Scientist Organization (ELSO) Meeting that will take place in Dresden, Germany September 3-6, 2005.

8/17/05
Anna Shestakova (Graduate Student in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Advisor – Dr. Vladimir Lupashin, Ph.D.) has been invited to participate at the 7^th Young Scientist Meeting of the German Society for Cell Biology that will take place at CARL ZEISS in Jena, Germany. Ms. Shestakova will be presenting a short talk and a poster entitled “COG complex-mediated recycling of Golgi glycosyltransferases is essential for normal protein glycosylation”.

8/15/05
Kristy M. Nicks, graduate student, and Dr. Dana Gaddy, Associate Professor (Department of Physiology & Biophysics), were awarded FASEB-MARC Travel Awards to attend the annual American Society for Bone and Mineral Research meeting in Nashville September 23-27.

8/11/2005
Kristy M. Nicks, student in the Dept. of Physiology & Biophysics at UAMS was awarded a  Porter Fellowship from The American Physiological Society (APS)  for  2005 - 2006 2005 - 2006 to study "Molecular Mechanisms Mediating the Anabolic Effects of Inhibin A  on the Skeleton" in Dr. Dana Gaddy's laboratory.   The American Physiological Society (APS) is a nonprofit organization devoted to fostering education, scientific research, and dissemination of information in the physiological sciences.

7/12/05

Daniel Perrien, graduate student in the Department of Physiology & Biophysics in Dr. Dana Gaddy's laboratory, was awarded his second year of predoctoral fellowship funding from the NASA Graduate Fellowship Program to study "Inhibin and the Hypogonadal Axis in Hindlimb Suspension-Induced Bone Loss".

6/2005
Daniel Perrien, graduate student (Department of Physiology & Biophysics), Dr. Dana Gaddy, Associate Professor, and Dr. Larry Suva, Adjunct Associate Professor (Department of Orthopaedic Surgery), co-authored a paper with others entitled "Regulation of bone mass by mechanical loading: microarchitecture and genetics" which was recently published in Current Osteoporosis Reports. Curr Osteoporos Rep. 2005 Jun;3(2):46-51.

6/2005
Daniel Perrien, graduate student (Department of Physiology & Biophysics) in Dr. Dana Gaddy's laboratory, is a recipient of a Web Jee Travel Award to attend the 35th International Sun Valley Workshop on Skeletal Tissue Biology in Sun Valley, Idaho August 1-5.

6/2005
Dr. Dana Gaddy, Associate Professor, co-authored a paper entitled "The effect of host tissue irradiation on large-segment allograft incorporation" with Dr. Richard Nicholas, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, and others, which was recently published in Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research . Clin Orthop Relat Res.2005 Jun;(435):43-51

4/26/2005
Two graduate students from Dr. Vladimir Lupashin laboratory received Awards for their poster presentations at the UAMS 2005 Student Research Days. Ms. Yulia Koriakina won 1^st place in Graduate student Division for the poster entitled “Cog1p is a bridging subunit between two lobes of Conservative Oligomeric Golgi (COG) complex”. Ms. Anna Shestakova won ACRC Travel Award for the poster entitled “Dysfunction of the COG complex may cause lethal congenital disorders of glycosylation”.

4/21/2005
Anna Dobretsova received a Young Investigator Educational Enhancement Award (YIEEA) in the amount of $500 to help cover her expenses to attend the 36th Annual ASN (American Society for Neurochemistry) Meeting in Madison WI in June 2005.

3/24/2005
Sergey N. Zolov, Ph.D. and Vladimir V. Lupashin, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics) co-authored a paper titled “Cog3p depletion blocks vesicle-mediated Golgi retrograde trafficking in HeLa cells” which was recently published in The Journal of Cell Biology ( 2005 168: 747-759). This paper was evaluated and recommended by the “Faculty of 1000”, a new online research tool that highlights the most interesting papers in biology, based on the recommendations of over 1000 leading scientists.

3/24/2005
Yulia Koriakina (Graduate Student in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Advisor – Dr. Vladimir Lupashin, Ph.D.) has been awarded a travel fellowship to the Experimental Biology 2005 Meeting to be held in San Diego, April 2-6.  The award is $750.00 US plus the advanced registration fee. Ms. Koriakina will be presenting a poster entitled “Cog1 is a bridging subunit between the two lobes of Conserved Oligomeric Golgi (COG) complex.”

1/28/2005
Experimental Biology has awarded Yulia Koriakina a $750.00 travel fellowship to thier meeting in San Diego

11/03/2004
The American Society for Cell Biology Award. Pierre Fotso a Post-doc in Dr. Vladimir Lupashin laboratory was awarded a Minorities Affairs Committee Travel Award, which is funded through an NIH NIGMS Marc grant.

9/1/04
NASA Pre-doctoral Research Training Grant was awarded to Daniel Perrien, graduate student in Physiology and Biophysics, to study "The Role of Inhibin and the Hypogonadal Axis in Regulating Bone Mass During Stimulated Microgravity" under the mentorship of Dr. Dana Gaddy, Associate Professor of Physiology & Biophysics.

2/10/2004
The American Society for Cell Biology Award. Pierre Fotso a Post-doc in Dr. Vladimir Lupashin laboratory was awarded third place in Minorities Poster Session at the annual meeting.

3/14/2003
APS Frontiers in Physiology Fellowship.  Bonnie Moody, a science teacher from Cabot Junior High School, Cabot, Arkansas was one of the 14 recipients of a 2003 Frontiers in Physiology Professional Development Fellowship from the American Physiological Society. The award is highly competitive. Dr. Parimal Chowdhury Ph.D. is her advisor and mentor. Ms. Moody will start her research project with Dr. Chowdhury in the summer, 2003. Ms. Moody will present her research data in the Annual Experimental Biology Meeting in 2004. In addition to her stipend ($5,000), she will receive $1,000 travel supplement to attend the EB 2004 meeting.

3/12/2003
Arkansas Space Grant Consortium Grant Awarded.  Dr. Parimal Chowdhury was funded for the second consecutive year by Arkansas Space Grant Consortium for his project entitled “ Animal Model of Microgravity: Studies on structure-function relationships on cardiovascular, brain and gastrointestinal tissues”. The other co-investigators in the project are Dr. Michael Soulsby and Dr. James Pasley. Dr. Chowdhury presented some of his research data from the project at the14^th International Symposium on Regulatory Peptides, held in Boston, Massachusetts, August 31-Sept 03, 2002.

3/7/2003
Appointment to National Institutes of Health Study Section.  Dr. Dana Gaddy was recently appointed as a regular member of the Orthopedics and Musculoskeletal Study Section.  The Orthopedics and Musculoskeletal Study Section meets three times each year to evaluate grant applications that address basic and clinical aspects of the musculoskeletal system, particularly bone, cartilage, tendons and ligaments.  Dr. Gaddy had previously served as an ad hoc member at four previous meetings.   

12/18/2002
American Society for Bone and Mineral Research Young Investigator Award.  Suzanne Bakewell, a doctoral student in the Department, recently received a $1000 award from the ASBMR to support her travel to the annual meeting.  In addition to the monetary award, Ms. Bakewell presented her abstract at the Plenary Poster Session that opened the meeting.  The title of her abstract was “Beta 3 Integrin -/- Mice are Protected from Osteolytic Bone Invasion”.  Dr. Dana Gaddy is Ms. Bakewell’s major professor. 

8/01/2002
National Science Foundation Research Grant.  Dr. Larry Cornett, a professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, was recently awarded a three-year, $508,909 grant entitled “Cloning and Functional Characterization of an Avian Pituitary Gland Vasotocin Receptor”.  The multi-institutional project is focused on defining the mechanisms involved in regulation of adrenocorticoptropin release by the neurohypophysial hormone vasotocin.  Results from this study may allow interventions to modify stress responses in domestic chickens.  Other investigators include Drs. John Kirby and Wayne Kuenzel from the Department of Poultry Science at the University of Arkansas and Drs. Dennis Baeyens and Nawab Ali from the Department of Biology at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock. 

7/10/2002
Multiple Sclerosis Society Awards Research Grant.  Dr. Patricia Wight, an associate professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, was recently awarded a three-year grant from the Multiple Sclerosis Society.  The $350,000 grant is entitled “Developmental Control of Myelin Proteolipid Protein Gene Regulation”.  Proteolipid protein is a major constituent of myelin, which plays an essential role in the conduction of nerve impulses.  The grant will extend support of Dr. Wight’s research by the Multiple Sclerosis Society to nine continuous years. 

5/16/2002
Arkansas Biosciences Institute Building Construction Update—Construction of the 142,000 square foot 6-story building began March 2002.  The targeted completion date is Fall 2003.  The Department of Physiology and Biophysics will occupy the 2^nd floor.  Dr. Michael Jennings, as a member of the ABI Building Committee, has been involved in designing the Department’s space.

5/10/2002
Departmental Faculty Publish Papers in Prestigious Journal—Between them, Drs. Vladimir Lupashin and Khaled Machaca have independently published three papers within the past year in The Journal of Cell Biology.  The two articles published by Dr. Lupashin report on mechanisms involved in the sorting and targeting of protein transport vesicles within eukaryotic cells.  Dr. Elena Suvorova, a postdoctoral fellow in the Lupashin laboratory, is first author on the most recent publication entitled “The Sec34/Sec35p complex, a Ypt1p effector required for retrograde intra-Golgi trafficking, interacts with Golgi SNARES and COPI vesicle coat proteins”.    Dr. Machaca’s paper reports on the regulation of store-operated calcium entry during oocyte maturation.  The paper is entitled “Induction of maturation-promoting factor during Xenopus oocyte maturation uncouples Ca²⁺ store depletion from store-operated Ca²⁺ entry”. 

5/7/2002
Three Department of Physiology and Biophysics Faculty Promoted to Associate Professor—Dr. Michael Jennings announced in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics Faculty Meeting that Dana Gaddy-Kurten, Ph.D., Richard Kurten, Ph.D., and Jimmy Zhou, Ph.D. recently received notification from the President of University of Arkansas System of their respective promotions to the rank of Associate Professor.  Drs. Gaddy-Kurten, Kurten and Zhou were the initial faculty recruited to the Department by Dr. Jennings following his appointment as Chair in September 1995.

4/19/2002
Career Day for Basic Biomedical Sciences a Huge Success—The inaugural event took place over a two-day period (April 17-18) as part of the College of Medicine Research Week.  Participants included UAMS graduate students and students and faculty from Arkansas colleges and universities.  The program included speakers who discussed career options for graduate students, as well as opportunities to meet with UAMS Graduate Program Directors and view posters describing research conducted by UAMS students, fellows and housestaff.  Lance Liotta, Ph.D., from the National Cancer Institute gave the keynote address entitled “Tissue Proteomics:  The Next Revolution in Molecular Pathology”.  Dr. Dana Gaddy-Kurten, an assistant professor in the Department organized the event that was attended by approximately 130 students and faculty.  Career Day was sponsored by the UAMS Chancellor’s Circle, UAMS Graduate School, UAMS Women’s Faculty Development Caucus, and the Arkansas Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network.  Poster Presentation Award Sponsors included Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, Ciphergen Biosystems, Inc., Proctor and Gamble Pharmaceuticals, UAMS Center for Orthopaedic Research, and the Arkansas Cancer Research Center.

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