Physiology Newsletter - November/December 2020

PHYSIOLOGY NEWS

NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2020

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSIOLOGY CELEBRATES ACCOMPLISHMENTS AT YEAR END REVIEW DEPARTMENT OF PHYSIOLOGY FACULTY Zhongjie Sun, MD, PhD, FAHA Professor and Chair Thomas A. Gerwin Chair of Excellence in Physiology Adebowale Adebiyi, PhD Professor Julio Cordero-Morales, PhD Associate Professor Ioannis Dragatsis, PhD Professor Zheng Fan, PhD Professor Polly Hofmann, PhD Professor Senior Executive Associate Dean, College of Medicine Jonathan H. Jaggar, PhD Maury W. Bronstein Professor Modar Kassan, PhD Assistant 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 Valeria Vásquez, PhD Associate 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.

On December 3, 2020, the Department of Physiology came together via Zoom to celebrate all the accomplishments our faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and support staff had achieved over the past year. The online event had a wonderful turnout, with 53 attendees tuning in for an informative and entertaining look back.

Among the highlights of the Year End Review was Dr. Zhongjie Sun, Chair of the Department of Physiology, who presented a detailed recap of 2020 and provided an ambitious roadmap of departmental goals for 2021.

Departmental awards were also bestowed to Dr. Kaushik Parthasarathi, who was lauded for Educational Excellence, Jada Williams and Luis Romero, who were named as recipients of the Outstanding Graduate Student Award, and Nathan Tipton, who received the Outstanding Staff Service Award.

The event concluded with a fast-paced and competitive round of trivia hosted by Vanessa Cunningham.

Dr. Sun repeatedly thanked the faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and support staff for their efforts and teamwork throughout 2020 and set the groundwork for a successful and productive 2021.

DIVERSITY MATTERS PHYSIOLOGY NEWS

NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2020

DR. CORDERO-MORALES AND CORDERO-VÁSQUEZ GROUP PUBLISH ARTICLE IN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE Dr. Julio Cordero-Morales, Associate Professor of Physiology, and members of the Cordero- Vásquez group, recently published an article in the Journal of Neuroscience. The article, entitled “Deficiency of inositol monophosphatase activity decreases phosphoinositide lipids and enhances TPRV1 function in vivo,” appears in the November 25, 2020 issue of the journal.

Cordero-Morales and his team demonstrate in this article that TRPV1 channel activity is enhanced when the phosphoinositide lipid content is reduced and the distal C-terminal domain is key to determining agonist response in vivo. These findings are significant because determining whether membrane phosphoinositides are positive or negative regulators of TPRV1 function is critical for developing therapeutic strategies to ameliorate TPRV1-mediated inflammatory pain.

The mission of the Journal of Neuroscience is to advance neuroscience research by publishing and widely disseminating the highly rigorous research representative of the breadth of neuroscience. The journal also strives to ensure that the peer review system remains rapid and fair, and it provides outlets for discussion of neuroscience that are not available elsewhere, allowing for competing ideas, debate, and questions around neuroscience.

The full cite for the article is Caires R, Bell B, Lee J, Romero JO, Vásquez V, Cordero-Morales JF. Deficiency of inositol monophosphatase activity decreases phosphoinositide lipids and enhances TPRV1 function in vivo. J. Neurosci 2020; 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0803-20.2020. doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0803-20.2020.

To learn more about Dr. Cordero-Morales and his research, please contact him at jcordero@uthsc.edu.

For more information about the Journal of Neuroscience, please visit jneurosci.org/.

DR. VALERIA VÁSQUEZ

NAMED AS ONE OF 100 MOST INSPIRING HISPANIC/LATINX SCIENTISTS IN AMERICA Dr. Valeria Vásquez, Associate Professor of Physiology, was recently named as one of 100 Most Inspiring Hispanic/ Latinx Scientists in America by the Cell Mentor blog of Cell Magazine. The list of investigators was selected based on scholarly achievements, mentoring excellence, and commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. As the editors of Cell Mentor note, “our aim in assembling these names is to put an end to the harmful myth that there are not enough diverse scientists to give seminars, serve as panelists, or fill scientific positions. We highlight scientists encompassing careers within academic, government, and biotech and showcase individuals committed to serving diverse student populations at Hispanic-serving institutions.”

promoting diverse, equitable, and inclusive environments in science. Dr. Vásquez’s laboratory studies the mechanism by which dietary fatty acids modulate the function of the sensory ion channels responsible for feeling pain. They use electrophysiology, biochemistry, spectroscopy, and behavior to answer these questions and find out how these channels are modulated by dietary lipids in order to create and develop therapeutic treatments to reduce pain and inflammation.

Dr. Vásquez has been in the Department of Physiology at UTHSC since 2014 and was recently promoted to Associate Professor. She is also currently president of the Latin American Biophysical Society and councilor for the Society of General Physiologists, where she works toward

For more insights about Dr. Vásquez, her lab, and her research, please contact her at vvasquez@uthsc.edu. For view the entire list of 100 Most Inspiring Hispanic/Latinx Scientists in America, please visit crosstalk.cell.com/ blog/100-inspiring-hispanic-latinx-sc

DIVERSITY MATTERS PHYSIOLOGY NEWS

NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2020

DR. GÁBOR TIGYI ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION OF HUNGARIAN AMERICAN ACADEMICIANS Dr. Gábor Tigyi, Harriet Van Vleet Endowment Professor of Physiology, has been elected to be the next president of the Association of Hungarian American Academicians (AHAA), an organization of nearly 80 external members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The AHAA is a nonprofit organization that held its 2018 annual conference at UTHSC and is dedicated to promoting the legacy and future of Hungarian scientific research by offering awards to young Hungarian scientists and graduate students to attend conferences in the USA. Members of the AHAA also provide expert advice to difference scientific organizations and research institutes in Hungary.

To learn more about Dr. Tigyi’s research endeavors, please contact him at gtigyi@uthsc.edu. To find out more about the AHAA, please visit ahaa-amat.org.

DR. TIGYI AWARDED NIH R41 STTR GRANT Dr. Gábor Tigyi, Harriet Van Vleet Endowment Professor and Associate Vice Chancellor for Research, Global Cooperation, and Industry Relations, was recently awarded a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) R41 grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). The grant will fund Dr. Tigyi’s project entitled “Targeted therapies for the treatment of GI-ARS diarrhea,” which he will undertake in collaboration with RxBio, Inc.

The mission of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and STTR programs is to support scientific excellent and technological innovation through the investment of Federal research funds in critical American priorities to build a strong national economy. The program’s goals are to: • Stimulate technological innovation.

• Meet Federal research and development needs.

• Foster and encourage participation in innovation and entrepreneurship by women and social or economicallydisadvantaged persons.

• Increase private-sector commercialization of innovations derived from Federal research and development funding.

• Foster technology transfer through cooperative R&D between small businesses and research institutions.

The STTR was created in 1992 and is part of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. These programs are highly competitive programs that encourage domestic small businesses to engage in Federal Research/ Research and Development (R/R&D) with the potential for commercialization. Through a competitive awardsbased program, SBIR and STTR enable small businesses to explore their technological potential and provide the incentive to profit from its commercialization. Central to the STTR program is the partnership between small businesses and nonprofit research institutions. The STTR program requires the small business to formally collaborate with a research institution in order to bridge the gap between performance of basic science and commercialization of resulting innovations.

Dr. Tigyi’s research is aimed at elucidating the structure and function as well as the signal transduction mechanism of a family of endogenous phospholipids with growth factorlike properties. Dr. Tigyi has shown that serum contains a set of lipid factors that are the major source of mitogenic stimuli present in serum. The best characterized member of this group of lipid mediators is lysophosphatidic acid (LPA). Dr. Tigyi’s group has identified the PSP24 receptor gene for LPA and has determined the ligand binding pocket for the EDG family of sphingosine-1-phosphate receptors and LPA receptors. Dr. Tigyi’s group has made pioneering contributions to the current understanding of the pharmacology of phospholipid growth factors.

To learn more about the SBIR/STTR programs, please visit sbir.gov/about. For more information about Dr. Tigyi and his research program, please reach out to him at gtigyi@uthsc.edu.

DIVERSITY MATTERS PHYSIOLOGY NEWS

NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2020

GRADUATE STUDENT JADA WILLIAMS AWARDED THEC DOCTORAL STUDIES AWARD Jada Williams, a second-year graduate student in the Molecular and Translational Physiology track of UTHSC’s Integrated Biomedical Sciences (IBS) program, was selected to receive a THEC Doctoral Studies Award. THEC, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, partners with public and private colleges and universities to provide student financial aid through Contract Education Grants to support the Tennessee Doctoral Scholars Program. This program is designed to increase the number of minority students who earn a Ph.D. and to encourage these graduates to seek faculty positions by providing financial assistance or up to three years of graduate study. Ms. Williams’s award will apply $20,000 for a year beginning on July 1, 2020 and also provides $2500 toward her research and professional development.

Jada earned her BS in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Tennessee at Martin and is a member of the American Physiological Society. She is currently doing rotation in the lab of Dr. Adebowale Adebiyi.

To learn more about Ms. Williams and her research in Dr. Adebiyi’s lab, please contact her at jaddwill@uthsc.edu.

DR. JONATHAN JAGGAR SELECTED AS APS PUBLICATIONS STAR REVIEWER Dr. Jonathan Jaggar, Maury Bronstein Endowed Professor of Physiology, was selected by the editors of American Physiological Society (APS) journals as an APS Star Reviewer during Peer Review Week in September 2020.

The APS journal program publishes 16 peer-reviewed, highly regarded, multidisciplinary scientific journals dedicated to the advancement of physiological research. This great work could not be published without the essential role of reviewers who ensure scientific quality through peer review. APS Star reviewers are recognized as those who consistently go above and beyond by providing an extraordinary number of reviews and/ or particularly timely reviews in each year. Star Reviewers are chosen by the Editors-in-Chief to recognize their outstanding service to the journal, and Dr. Jaggar was selected by the Editors of Physiological Reviews as one of three Star Reviewers.

Physiological Reviews publishes comprehensive, analytical, and critical reviews by authors whose research has had a major influence on the development of the topic reviewed.

An invitation to prepare a review usually originates with the Editorial Board. A good review presents new concepts or approaches that are the result of the contributions of several laboratories engaged in research on the subject.

Manuscripts will be published if judged to represent a

critical and comprehensive review of the selected topic, and authors are urged to write with both a general and a specialized readership in mind. The general reader often uses papers published in Physiological Reviews to provide the background for teaching or for research in an area that is new to him/her. Therefore, authors are encouraged to provide an informative Introduction and Summary or Conclusion, and to make use of figures and tables with a high didactic value.

To find out more about Dr. Jaggar and the research being done in his lab, please contact him at jjaggar@uthsc.edu. To learn more about the APS Journals’ Star Reviewers, please visit journals.physiology.org/peer-review-wee

PHYSIOLOGY NEWS

NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2020

DR. VALERIA VÁSQUEZ AND DR. JULIO CORDERO-MORALES AWARDED NIH BENCH-TO-BEDSIDE AND BACK FUNDS Dr. Valeria Vásquez and Dr. Julio Cordero-Morales, Associate Professors of Physiology, were awarded funding from the NIH Office of Clinical Research’s Bench-to-Bedside and Back (BtB) program for the project titled “Dietary fatty acids to alleviate neuropathic pain.” Dr. Vásquez and Dr. Cordero will share this funding with Dr. Alexander Chesler, Senior Investigator at the NIH Division of Intramural Research’s Section on Sensory Cells and Circuits, who is collaborating with them on the project.

The NIH Bench-to-Bedside and Back Program program was originally established in 1999 to integrate the work of basic and clinical intramural scientists and expanded in 2006 to partnerships between intramural and extramural programs.

(Intramural science refers to research that takes place on an NIH campus under the auspices of federal employees, while extramural research is conducted by investigators and institutions outside of NIH.) Funded projects can receive up to $150K per year for two years. Projects can involve only intramural investigators, but collaborations between intramural and extramural investigators is preferred.

The goals of the BtB program are to fund research teams seeking to translate basic scientific findings into therapeutic interventions for patients, and to increase understanding of important disease processes by addressing barriers, such as the traditional silos between basic and clinical researchers in biomedical research, which can hinder progress toward finding new therapeutics for patients in need.

For more information about this project and other work being done by the Cordero-Vásquez group, please reach out to Dr. Vásquez (vvasquez@uthsc.edu) or Dr. Cordero (jcordero@uthsc.edu). To learn more about the NIH’s Bench-to-Bedside and Back Program, check out ocr.od.nih. gov/btb/btb_program.html.

Intramural investigators in all institutes/centers are eligible to serve as project leaders on proposals. All Bench-toBedside and Back Program teams should involve an intramural investigator PLUS one or more investigator(s) from another institute and/or an extramural partner(s). For awards involving extramural partners, extramural funds will be as awarded via an administrative supplement to an existing NIH grant.

DR. ADEBOWALE ADEBIYI AWARDED THIRD R01 IN 2020 Dr. Adebowale Adebiyi, Professor of Physiology, was recently notified that his five-year project entitled “Urotensin II and renal insufficiency in growth-restricted infants” was funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of the National Institutes of Health. This is the third award Dr. Adebiyi has received from the NIH in 2020.

the burden of infant and adult kidney and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.

To learn more about Dr. Adebiyi’s research, please reach out to him at aadebiyi@uthsc.edu.

The goal of Dr. Adebiyi’s project is to tease out the cellular and functional mechanisms and consequences of increased urotensin II activity in infants with kidney injury. Dr. Adebiyi and his lab will investigate whether components of the urotensin II system are novel therapeutic targets to reduce

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