PHYSIOLOGY NEWS
SUMMER 2024
MOHAMMED UMAR
AWARDED AHA FELLOWSHIP DEPARTMENT OF PHYSIOLOGY FACULTY Zhongjie Sun, MD, PhD, FAHA Professor and Chair Thomas A. Gerwin Chair of Excellence in Physiology Ioannis Dragatsis, PhD Professor Zheng Fan, PhD Professor Jonathan H. Jaggar, PhD Maury W. Bronstein Professor Salvatore Mancarella, PhD Associate Professor Helena Parfenova, PhD Professor Kaushik Parthasarathi, PhD Associate Professor Gadiparthi N. Rao, PhD George and Elizabeth Malloy Professor Radhakrishna Rao, PhD Professor Donald B. Thomason, PhD Professor Dean, College of Graduate Health Sciences Gabor J. Tigyi, MD, PhD Van Vleet Professor Junwang Xu, PhD Associate Professor Djamel Lebeche, PhD Professor Ki-Suk Kim, PhD Assistant Professor Rahima Zennadi, PhD Associate Professor Rajeshwary Ghosh, PhD Assistant Professor
The University of Tennessee is an EEO/AA/Title VI/Title IX/ Section 504/ADA/ADEA/V institution in the provision of its education and employment programs and services.
Graduate Research Assistant Mohammed Umar, who works in the lab of Dr. Rajeshwary Ghosh, was awarded a prestigious Pre-Doctoral Fellowship from the American Heart Association for 2024. These awards are given in order “to enhance the integrated research and clinical training of promising students who are matriculated in pre-doctoral or clinical health professional degree training programs and who intend careers as scientists, physicianscientists or other clinicianscientists, or related careers aimed at improving global cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and brain health.” In the Ghosh lab, Mohammed’s research focuses on the role of NBR1 protein in maintaining cardiac function in hypoexia. For more information about Mohammed’s research, contact him at mumar@uthsc.edu. For information about the AHA Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, visit https://professional.heart. org/en/research-programs/aha-funding-opportunities/ predoctoral-fellowship
DR. TESSA GARRUD PUBLISHES PAPER IN PNAS
Dr. Tessa Aimee Catriona Garrud, a Postdoctoral Scholar in the lab of Dr. Jonathan Jaggar, published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS. The paper, titled “WNK Kinase is a Vasoactive Chloride Sensor in Endothelial Cells,” appeared in the celebrated journal on April 3rd, 2024, with Dr. Garrud appearing as the first author on the article. The paper posits important findings about chloride signaling in endothelial cells, demonstrating how “TMEM16A channels regulate intracellular Cl− signaling which controls WNK kinase activity in ECs to modify arterial contractility.” The list of additional collaborators on the project include Drs Jaggar, Mata-Dabouin, and Peixoto-Neves from the lab that Dr. Garrud works in, as well as members of the Cordero and Collier labs. For more information about Dr. Garrud and her research, contact her at tgarrud@uthsc.edu. To read the article, visit https://www. pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2322135121