Neuroscience Graduate Program Faculty

John Allen, PhD

• Assistant Professor, Pharmacology
• Research Interest: Neuropharmacology; drug discovery and translational research for neurological and psychiatric disorders; biology; biochemistry and pharmacology of G protein-coupled receptors.  

Noelle C. Anastasio, PhD

• Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
• Research Interest:  The interface of pharmacology, neuroscience and psychiatry in the prevention and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders.

Xiaoyong Bao, PhD 

• Professor, Department of Pediatrics
• Research Interest: The research in my lab focuses on molecular mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis and host immune responses associated with RSV and hMPV infections, the two leading causes of lower respiratory tract infections in infants.

Dennis Bente, PhD

• Associate Professor, Microbiology and Immunology
• Research Interest: Long-term behavioral and neuroinflammatory changes of encephalitic arboviruses in animal models

Kae-Jiun Chang, PhD

• Assistant Professor, Neurobiology
• Research Interest: Molecular mechanisms of myelination and remyelination; Schwann cells; oligodendrocytes; neuron-glia interactions

Bo Chen, PhD

• Assistant Professor, Neurobiology
• Research Interest: Developing novel methods to promote functional recovery through enhancing and re-establishing functional connections between the brain and spinal cord

Jin Mo Chung, PhD

• Professor and Chair, Neurobiology
• Research Interest: Somatosensory system; mechanisms of neuropathic pain; cell signaling and reactive oxygen species.

Luca Cicalese, MD

• Professor, Surgery
• Research Interest: Tolerance induction; preservation and ischemia reperfusion injury;
  liver and intestinal transplantation; stem cell and organ regeneration; hepatocellular carcinoma; cellular transplantation.

Elvis-Yane Cuevas-Martinez, PhD

• Assistant Professor, Neurology
• Research Interest: The main goal of Neurovascular Research Cuevas Lab is to evaluate the risk factors linked to sex differences in neurovascular dysfunction and Alzheimer’s Disease, using innovative methodologies and models. 

Kathryn A. Cunningham, PhD

• Professor and Vice Chair, Pharmacology and Toxicology;
  Director, Center for Addiction Research
• Research Interest: Drug abuse and addiction biology; eating disorders and obesity; neuropsychopharmacology; translational research and drug discovery in psychiatry; mechanisms of action of psychostimulants; circuitry/regulation of serotonin systems.

Perenlei Enkhbaatar, MD, PhD

• Professor, Anesthesiology
• Research Interest: Pathophysiology of acute lung injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome secondary to skin burn, smoke inhalation and sepsis. Focus on the interrelation of the coagulapathy and inflammation, microthrombosis, neutrophil biology, nitric oxide and reactive nitrogen species.

Rinat Esenaliev, PhD

• Professor, Neurobiology
• Research Interest: Novel diagnostic imaging modality; nanoparticle-based therapy of tumors; real-time noninvasive optoacoustic/photoacoustic monitoring of tissue; noninvasive continuous monitoring of blood oxygenation; noninvasive measurement and monitoring of total hemoglobin concentration; noninvasive monitoring of blood glucose concentration.

Eliseo Eugenin, PhD

• Professor, Neurobiology
• Research Interests:  The role of cellular communication during the pathogenesis of NeuroHIV; Identification of brain biomarkers of dementia; Glioblastoma, a novel approach to cure this disease; heart disease and cell to cell communication.

Benjamin B. Gelman, MD, PhD

• Professor, Pathology
• Research Interest: Mononuclear phagocytes in the nervous system; AIDS.

Dustin Green, PhD

• Assistant Professor, Neurobiology
• Research Interest: Examining how neurons and immune cells interact with one another.  We study a large family of G protein-coupled receptors, called Mrgprs, and their role in pathological pain and itch.

Thomas A. Green, PhD

• Professor, Pharmacology and Toxicology
• Research Interest: Brain circuitry controlling frustration (frustrative nonreward) and its ability to blunt motivation, particularly for drugs of abuse. Use of machine learning applied to quantifying internal states from behavior (frustration, joy, anticipation, etc.). Molecular mechanisms underlying addiction- and depression-related behavior; role of environment in altering these molecular targets in brain reward regions subsequent to stress or cocaine exposure; genomic strategies to identify new molecular targets mediating these phenotypes.

Praveena Gupta, PhD

• Associate Professor, Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
• Research Interest: High Energy Violet (HEV) light induced phototoxicity on the retina in a mouse model; Combined treatment using corneal crosslinking and topical osmolar agents in reducing corneal edema; Characterization of exosomes in age related macular degeneration.  

Owen P. Hamill, PhD

• Associate Professor, Neurobiology
• Research Interest: Membrane channel regulation of tumor cell migration and invasiveness.

Jonathan D. Hommel, PhD

• Assistant Professor, Pharmacology and Toxicology
• Research Interest: Molecular mechanisms of food addiction, neuropeptide control of eating behavior, drug discovery, obesity. Techniques: gene therapy, neuronal tracing, animal models of food craving and food reward.

Li-Yen Mae Huang, PhD

• Professor, Neurobiology
• Research Interest: Mechanisms of receptor sensitization after injury; opioid receptor gene transfer.

Young-Hwan Jung, PhD

• Assistant Professor, Neurobiology and Sealy Institute for Drug Discovery
• Research Interest: Drug discovery; Development of bioavailable small molecules for therapeutics; Targeted protein degradation (TPD) to decrease the levels of specific disease-associated proteins; Developing multivalent epigenetic modifiers through the integration of key pharmacophores.
  

Rakez Kayed, PhD

• Professor, Neurology
• Research Interest: Neurodegenerative diseases associated with amyloid, such as Alzheimer`s (AD), Parkinson's (PD), Type II diabetes, amyloidosis and others; cellular mechanism of tau/amyloid oligomer formation and toxicity; role of cell membrane and receptors in amyloid pathogenesis; tau oligomers and their role in AD and related tauopathies; imunotherapy for the treatment of AD and PD; development of methods for early diagnostics of neurodegenerative diseases; screening for drug like molecules that interfere with different amyloid species.

Balaji Krishnan, PhD

• Assistant Professor, Neurology
• Research Interest: Understanding the synaptic changes in formation and retrieval of short-term and long-term associative memory mechanisms using behavior, biochemistry, molecular biology and electrophysiological approaches.

Jun-Ho La, PhD

• Assistant Professor, Neurobiology
• Research Interest: Chronic  pain and  developing therapeutic tools to manage this debilitating condition, changes in synaptic strength that are  associated with  chronic pain, and primary afferent input contributes to the dynamic synaptic  plasticity

Fernanda Laezza, MD, PhD

• Associate Professor, Pharmacology & Toxicology
• Research Interest: Cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying modulation of ion channels in relationship to intrinsic excitability, synaptic transmission and plasticity; regulation of intrinsic excitability and synaptic transmission by intracellular fibroblast growth factors (iFGFs); ataxias and neurodegenerative diseases.

Agenor Limon, PhD

• Assistant Professor, Neurology
• Research Interest: Molecular mechanisms of excitation-inhibition imbalance in neurodegenerative diseases and mental disorders; Microtransplantation of Synaptic Membranes (MSM) to direct analysis of pharmacological and biophysical remodeling of human native receptors in disease.
• Molecular mechanisms of synaptic resilience.

Hua Liu, PhD

• Assistant Professor, Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences
• Research Interest: Using genetic and pharmacological approaches to understand the neuroprotective role of Sirt6 in glaucoma and identifying novel mechanisms underlying ZIKV-induced retinal neuronal and vascular degeneration

Tomoko Makishima, MD, PhD

• Associate Professor, Otolaryngology
• Research Interest: Auditory and vestibular function analysis in humans and rodent models. Hearing loss and balance dysfunction induced by Lassa virus infection – human cohort study, mice behavioral analysis, molecular and cell biology of the inner ear.

Jere W. McBride, Ph.D., M.S.

• Professor, Pathology
• Research Interest: Manipulation host alternative splicing by intracellular bacteria; Short linear motif mimicry by intracellular bacteria; Bacterial ubiquitin ligases and host cell substrates; Exploitation of conserved host cell signaling pathways by intracellular bacteria; Pathogen post translational modifications and roles in infection; Bacterial nucleomodulins and modulation of host transcription and epigenetic signatures; Molecular pathobiology of obligately intracellular bacteria and immune evasion; Effector proteins and secretion mechanisms (type 1) of obligately intracellular bacteria; Molecular mechanisms involved in adaptation to mammalian and arthropod hosts by Ehrlichia; Subunit vaccine and immunodiagnostic development for human and veterinary ehrlichioses.

Maria Micci, PhD

• Associate Professor, Anesthesiology
• Research Interest: Development of novel therapies for the treatment of traumatic brain injury including, short-pulse laser therapy and stem cell transplantation; analysis of neurogenesis in the hippocampus in an animal model of traumatic brain injury and in human bioptic specimens of Alzheimer’s disease; development of non-invasive imaging techniques for monitoring viable cells grafted in the brain.

Massoud Motamedi, PhD

• Professor, Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
• Director, Center for Biomedical Engineering
• Research Interest: Biomedical engineering, biophysics, imaging, monitoring and sensing.  Ocular imaging and therapy.  Nanotechnology.  Cancer diagnosis and therapy.  Cardiovascular research.  

Andres Oberhauser, PhD

• Professor, Neurobiology
• Research Interests:  To elucidate the precise molecular mechanisms by which the chaperones UNC-45 and Hsp90 assist in the folding of the myosin head which is critical for sarcomere assembly during the development and repair of stress-induced damage to sarcomeres in mature muscle.

Bin Pan, MD, PhD. 

• Associate Professor, Neurobiology
• Mechanisms of chronic pain and pain-induced affective disorders
• Analgesic mechanisms of dorsal root ganglion stimulation
• Endocannabinoid signaling in pain and depression.

Brendan Prideaux, Ph.D.

• Assistant Professor, Neurobiology
• Research Interests: Understanding pathogenic mechanisms of infectious disease using state-of-the-art mass spectrometry and imaging technologies.

Donald S. Prough, MD

• Professor and Chair, Anesthesiology
• Research Interest: Response to traumatic brain injury; zinc neurotoxicity.

Cristiana Rastellini, MD

• Professor, Surgery, Neurobiology
• Research Interest: Organ/cellular preservation; mechanisms of acute and chronic rejection; tolerance induction; pancreatic islet transplantation; beta cell proliferation.

Gabrielle Rudenko, Ph.D.

• Associate Professor, Pharmacology
• Research Interest: Answering fundamental questions about synapse function on a molecular level, and using this information to identify and exploit new targets for the treatment of neurological disorders.

Partha Sarkar, PhD

• Assistant Professor, Neurology

• Research Interest: Toxic CUG RNA, chronic oxidative stress and mechanism of skeletal muscle wasting in myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1); Polyglutamine expansions, mechanism of genome instability, neuronal dysfunction and neurodegeneration in spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3).

Bartosz Szczesny, PhD

• Associate Professor, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
• Research Interest:  Roles of the mitochondria in physiological and pathological conditions; mitochondrial DNA induced inflammatory response, mechanisms of the mitochondrial DNA repair and role of mitochondria in cancer.

Giulio Taglialatela, PhD

• Professor, Neurology
• Director, Mitchell Center for Neurodegenerataive Diseases
• Research Interest: Neurodegeneration and apoptosis in the aged CNS and Alzheimer's disease.

Gracie Vargas, PhD

• Professor, Neurobiology
• Research Interest:  Advanced intravital microscopy (nonlinear optical microscopy, endomicroscopy) in injury or disease; noninvasive optical diagnostics in cancer; use of contrast agents and molecular specific probes for enhanced image contrast; applications of advanced imaging in infectious diseases.

Gianmarco Vizzeri, PhD

• Professor, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
• Research Interest:  Finding new diagnostic and therapeutic modalities to prevent vision loss due to glaucoma.

Ping Wu, MD, PhD

• Professor, Neurobiology
• Director, Neuroscience Graduate Program
• Research Interest: Stem cell biology and applications; brain and behavior development after prenatal exposure to viruses or opioids.

Zizhen Wu, PhD

• Assistant Professor, Neurobiology
• Research Interests:  Research focuses on investigating the molecular and cellular basis of mechanotransduction, specifically how mechanical cues from the extracellular matrix, neighboring cells, and external surroundings mediate homeostatic adaptations in cells. I employ a multidisciplinary approach—integrating electrophysiology, in vivo calcium imaging, genetic tools, molecular biology, and behavioral analysis—to examine how mechanosensory signaling pathways impact cellular physiology. This research aims to advance our understanding of homeostatic regulation and inform the development of therapeutic interventions for disorders associated with disrupted mechanotransduction.
  

Qing Yang, MD

• Assistant Professor, Neurobiology
• Research Interests:  To identify potential therapeutic targets that can be used to effectively treat chemotherapy- and neurotrauma-induced complications.

Y. Whitney Yin, MD, PhD

• Assistant Professor, Pharmacology & Toxicology
• Research Interest: Structural and biochemical basis for antiviral drug mitochondrial toxicity; mitochondrial DNA replication and repair; correlation of mitochondrial DNA polymerase mutation with clinical phenotypes; correlation of mitochondrial DNA polymerase mutation with clinical phenotypes.

Subo Yuan, MD, Ph.D.

• Assistant Professor, Neurobiology
• Research Interest: Nociceptors found in the epidermis protect our body from potential tissue injury via acute pain transmission.  However, certain pathological conditions can lead to these nociceptors switching to a chronic or neuropathic pain state. Although HIV infection is now well controlled using antiretroviral therapy (ART), the prevalence of HIV associated pain remains a clinically relevant problem.  The focus of research in my lab is on investigating cellular and molecular mechanisms relevant to HIV associated chronic pain and analyze the pathological role of nociceptors in mediating HIV associated pain.

Kangling Zhang, Ph.D.

• Associate Professor, Pharmacology & Toxicology
• Research Interest: Development of state-of-the-art methodologies in mass spectrometry and their applications in epigenetics, with the hope of better understanding the cause of diseases and cancer.

Wenbo Zhang, PhD

• Professor, Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences
• Research Interest: Mechanisms of ischemic retinopathy: retinal neuronal injury, retinal vascular leakage and degeneration, and retinal pathological antiogenesis.