Research Retreat

  8:45 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Registration
  9:00 a.m. – 9:05 a.m. Welcome
John Byrne, Ph.D.,  Associate Dean for Research, Professor, Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy
  9:05 a.m. – 9:15 a.m. Remarks from John Hancock, MA, MB, BChir, PhD, ScD
Executive Dean, McGovern Medical School
  9:15 a.m. – 10:35 a.m. Breakthrough Discovery Symposium I
Chaired by Sonia Robazetti, M.D., CCRC, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences
“C-STEP: Stepping up the training of future clinician-scientists”

Lillian Kao, M.D., M.S.,  Professor, Division Chief, Division of Acute Care Surgery, Jack H. Mayfield Chair,  Department of Surgery

“Deciphering the signaling mechanisms of cancer cachexia”

Yi-Ping Li, Ph.D.Professor, Department of Integrative Biology and Pharmacology

“Prions and amyloids: Common features and newly identified properties

Rodrigo Morales, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Neurology

 10:35 a.m. – 10:50 a.m. Break
 10:50 a.m. – 11:50 a.m. Keynote Address/Ernst Knobil Distinguished Lecture
Introduction by:  Mikhail Kolonin, Ph.D. , IMM, Metabolic and Degenerative Diseases


Philipp Scherer, Ph.D.
Professor and Director, Touchstone Diabetes Center
UT Southwestern Medical Center
“The adipocyte: Power of the underdog in metabolism”

11:50 a.m. – 12:35 p.m. Postdoctoral Symposium
Chaired by Gabriel Fries, Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
“Meaning in the brain: Using intracranial recordings to map the neural basis of language”

Elliot Murphy, Ph.D., The Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery

Development of novel antifungals against Candida based on an antifungal peptide produced by E. faecalis”

Shantanu Guhu, Ph.D., Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics

  “Genetic and pharmacological dissection of the ROR receptors in circadian physiology”

Eunju Kim, Ph.D., Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

12:35 p.m. – 2:35 p.m. Graduate Student Education Committee Poster Session and Lunch
  2:35 p.m. – 3:55 p.m. Breakthrough Discovery Symposium II
Chaired by Kristin Eckel-Mahan, Ph.D., Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine
“Possibilities for patient-derived iPSCs in cancer modeling and targeted therapies”

Dung-Fang Lee, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Integrative Biology and Pharmacology

“Regeneration of a functional intestine for children with intestinal failure”

Allison Speer, M.D., FACS, FAAP, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatric Surgery, Surgical Director, STAR

“HIF-dependent induction of alveolar miR-147 dampens SARS-CoV-2 immune evasion”

Xiaoyi Yuan, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Anesthesiology

  3:55 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. Winners of the Graduate Student Education Committee Poster Competition Announced