Symposium Speakers
Qingchun Tong
Dr. Qingchun Tong obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Anhui Normal University in 1996, and a Masters of Science in Physiology from Shanghai Institute of Physiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999. He then came to the United States and obtained a PhD in the Neural and Behavioral Program at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. There, he investigated neural control of hormone secretion from the endocrine pancreas.
In 2003, he moved to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of Harvard Medical School, initially as a postdoctoral fellow and later as an Instructor. During this period of training, he initiated a new line of research aiming to understand the role of fast-acting neurotransmitters in mediating the brain action on energy and glucose homeostasis.
In 2009, Dr. Tong started his own lab at the Institute of Molecular Medicine of UTHealth. Using novel genetic animals generated by Cre-loxP technology, his goal is to dissect neural pathways that are responsible for body weight and glucose homeostasis, and provide a rationale for more effective and specific drug designs against the current obesity and diabetes epidemic.
Yang Xia
Following her graduation from Hunan Medical University (later renamed Xiangya School of Medicine), Dr. Xia received a full scholarship to attend the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Science where she conducted research in the area of cardiac hypertrophy.
As a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology she continued her study of cardiovascular diseases including hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and was invited to join the faculty.
Her studies are published in numerous prestigious Journals including Nature Medicine, JCI, JEM, Circulation, Circulation Research, Hypertension and JI, etc. Overall, Dr. Xia is internationally recognized for research in hypertension, chronic kidney disease and blood disorders, particularly sickle cell disease.
Rosemary Kozar
Rosemary Kozar is the James H. "Red" Duke, Jr. Professor of Surgery and Chief of Trauma, Memorial Hermann Hospital–TMC. She received her medical degree from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and a PhD in Molecular Physiology and Biophysics at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. She began her residency at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston and finished at Temple University where she also completed a fellowship in Surgical Critical Care.
Dr. Kozar's research interests are the impact of enteral nutrients on the post-ischemic gut. She has published numerous articles in the area of trauma and critical care.
Pramod Dash
Dr. Pramod Dash obtained a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Utkal University in Orissa, India and a Masters of Science from IIT in Kanpur, India. He then came to the United States and obtained a PhD in Biological Science at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
He began his postdoctoral training in 1986, in the laboratory of Eric Kandel at the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in New York.
In 1990, he joined the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy at UTHealth. His laboratory studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie memory, with particular focus on the role of the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus. Also, the Dash lab is identifying prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers for neurological diseases including traumatic brain injury.
Dr. Dash serves as Scientific Director, Mission Connect TIRR Consortium.
Perry Bickel
Dr. Bickel received his B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University and his M.D. from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas. He completed clinical training in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston. Motivated by a desire to understand the molecular causes of the common diseases he was treating in his patients, he trained in the molecular cell biology of lipid metabolism in the labs of Mason Freeman at MGH and of Harvey Lodish at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In 1998 Dr. Bickel joined the faculty of the Washington University School of Medicine as Assistant Professor of Medicine and of Cell Biology & Physiology. His work there established that lipid droplet biogenesis is an organized program that involves the recruitment of “exchangeable” lipid droplet proteins from other cellular compartments to the lipid droplet surface.
In September 2007 Dr. Bickel joined the IMM to lead the development of a new program in metabolic diseases. In addition to building this program, Dr. Bickel has continued to study the question of how cells and tissues regulate lipid storage and utilization. These studies focus on the perilipin family of lipid droplet coat proteins, including OXPAT, which Dr. Bickel’s lab reported in 2006. Dr. Bickel’s lab is developing the concept that these lipid droplet proteins are an essential mechanism to protect cells against toxic effects of excess lipids, such as may lead to diabetes mellitus and heart disease.
Vihang Narkar
Vihang Narkar is an assistant professor at UTHealth Institute of Molecular Medicine’s Center for Metabolic and Degenerative Diseases.
He earned his doctorate in pharmacology from University of Houston, where he studied the regulation of kidney function by G-protein coupled dopamine receptors. During his post-doctoral training, first with Dr. Peter Davies at UTHealth and later with Dr. Ronald Evans at the Salk Institute, Dr. Narkar became interested in how gene regulatory networks control metabolism and contractility in skeletal muscles, particularly during exercise. These studies led to his discovery of how to use drugs and genetics to activate gene networks to mimic the beneficial effects of exercise on muscle performance. His work on exercise mimesis, which has profound implications for treating those who are unable to exercise due to disability, frailty, or other causes.
At the IMM, Dr. Narkar is exploiting his expertise in mouse genetics and pharmacology to explore the therapeutic implications of ‘exercise mimetic’ transcriptional pathways in combating disorders that are known to benefit from regular exercise, such as diabetes, muscular dystrophy and muscle ischemia.
Heinrich Taegtmeyer
Dr. Taegtmeyer received his medical degree (summa cum laude) from the University of Freiburg (Germany) in 1968, and his DPhil in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford, UK in 1981. He is a board certified cardiologist since 1977 and joined the UT faculty in 1982.
Dr. Taegtmeyer’s lab studies regulation of energy substrate metabolism, gene expression and signal transduction in the heart. At the molecular level, the lab explores mechanisms by which metabolically generated signals regulate pathways of cardiac growth (protein synthesis) and reverse remodeling (protein degradation). The focus is on self-renewal of the cardiomyocyte. Models include hypertrophied and atrophied heart in vivo, isolated working hearts, and isolated heart muscle cells in culture.
Dr. Taegtmeyer is the author of more than 175 peer-reviewed papers of original research, 38 invited editorials and reviews, and 21 book chapters. He has also edited 3 textbooks.
Rebecca Berdeaux
Dr. Rebecca Berdeaux became fascinated with signal transduction during her
undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Her
primary interest was normal mechanisms of cell signaling that become misregulated
in disease states. She pursued this interest in graduate work investigating
mechanisms of Src-induced oncogenic transformation with Dr. G. Steven Martin
at the University of California, Berkeley.
While in California, Dr. Berdeaux developed an interest in the salutary effects
of exercise on type 2 diabetes. Thus, for postdoctoral study, she moved to the
Salk Institute in San Diego to study cell signaling pathways in metabolic organs
with Dr. Marc Montminy, a leader in transcriptional regulation of glucose homeostasis.
There Dr. Berdeaux studied signal-induced transcription and developed transgenic
mice to test phenotypic consequences of manipulating transcription factor activity.
She found that instead of exerting a metabolic function, the transcription factor
CREB was required for survival and structural integrity of adult skeletal muscle
in mice.
In her laboratory in the Integrative Biology and Pharmacology Department, Dr.
Berdeaux and her team continue to use primary culture and genetic mouse models
to understand how molecular mechanisms of signal transduction relate to in
vivo phenotypes. Her laboratory is currently pursuing roles of CREB and
one of its transcriptional targets in two distinct metabolic organs, liver and
skeletal muscle. They aim to uncover new tissue-specific mechanisms by which
this pathway can be inhibited in liver to prevent excessive glucose output or
activated in skeletal muscle to promote stem cell-mediated repair.
