Faculty

Melanie Gareau

  • Associate Professor
  • Department of Anatomy, Physiology, and Cell Biology -- School of Veterinary Medicine
Melanie Gareau studies the microbiota-gut-brain axis, with a particular focus on the factors that shape the development of the axis during early post-natal life.

Aldrin Gomes

  • Professor
  • Department of Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior -- College of Biological Sciences
Aldrin Gomes, 2017 Chancellor’s Fellow, examines the molecular mechanisms of signal transduction, particularly in the role of protein homeostasis in cardiovascular disease.  Two main research areas are the role of the proteasome and immunoproteasome in cardiac and skeletal muscles, and the role of troponin in calcium regulation of muscle contraction in cardiomyopathies.

Theanne Griffith

  • Assistant Professor
  • Department of Physiology and Membrane Biology -- School of Medicine
Theanne Griffith investigates the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the transmission of thermal sensations in both health and disease. Researchers in her lab aim to identify the ion channels and receptors that constitute the transmission machinery in thermosensitive sensory neurons, and understand how their function is regulated under physiological and pathological conditions. To accomplish this, they use an innovation combination of patch-clamp electrophysiology, behavior, molecular profiling, and imaging in a mouse model.

Cecilia Guilivi

  • Professor
  • Molecular Biosciences -- School of Veterinary Medicine
Cecilia Giulivi's research focuses on the mitochondrial biology that underlies different pathophysiological cases including autism, schizophrenia, Huntington's and fragile X tremor and ataxia syndrome.

Gene Gurkoff

  • Associate Professor
  • Department of Neurological Surgery -- School of Medicine
Gene Gurkoff conducts translational and basic research on brain injury and methods to moderate the effects of neurologic disorders, in particular traumatic brain injury and epilepsy. Projects include investigating how neural connectivity changes in the injured brain, and potential therapies including both pharmacological and deep brain stimulation. He is a member of the CounterACT Center of Excellence, a team of scientists evaluating the effects of organophosphate-induced epilepsy and the Center for Neuroengineering and Medicine because of his interest in analyzing neural activity and developing novel therapeutic tools.

Wolf-Dietrich Heyer

  • Distinguished Professor
  • Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics -- College of Biological Sciences
The Wolf-Dietrich Heyer laboratory studies the mechanism and regulation of recombinational DNA repair. Their studies integrate biophysical, biochemical, cell biological and genetic approaches, with translational studies that aim at harnessing the knowledge of the basic mechanisms of recombinational DNA repair to improve the understanding of cancer etiology and develop novel concepts in anti-tumor therapy.

Wilsaan Joiner

  • Professor
  • Department of Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior -- College of Biological Sciences
  • Department of Neurology -- School of Medicine
Wilsaan Joiner studies how humans use information to aid behavior ranging from visual perception to movement planning and updating. Specifically, he examines how external and internally-generated sensory information is integrated in healthy individuals, in comparison to impaired populations (e.g., people with schizophrenia and upper extremity amputees). Achieving this understanding may lead to better methods for diagnosing and treating impairments of the nervous system.

Celina Juliano

  • Associate Professor
  • Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology -- College of Biological Sciences
Hydra, a simple aquatic animal, undergoes continual self-renewal, lacks senescence, and has robust regenerative capabilities; this is accomplished using the same basic molecular toolkit that vertebrates possess. Celina Juliano and her lab seek to understand the molecular mechanisms that underlie these processes in Hydra. By using single cell RNA sequencing technology and collecting thousands of single cell transcriptomes at a single developmental time point, they gain insight into differentiation trajectories and thus obtain an unprecedented view of development. Using this strategy, they are building a molecular map of Hydra homeostatic development.

Tina Kim

  • Assistant Professor
  • Center for Neuroscience
  • Department of Neurology -- School of Medicine
Tina Kim and members of her lab develop molecular and optical approaches to study the function and molecular organization of neurons in the brain. They use synthetic biology, in vivo imaging, and molecular characterization to examine the neural building blocks that regulate motivated behavior in mice.

Ian Korf

  • Professor
  • Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology -- College of Biological Sciences
Ian Korf works in genomics at the interface between biology and quantitative methods. His work has advanced gene prediction, sequence alignment, motif detection, epigenetics, intron function, protein-DNA interactions, ChIP-seq analysis, centromere evolution, DNA repair, high performance computing, RNA processing, and milk biology. Students in the Korf laboratory are co-mentored by experimental molecular biologists so that students get a multi-disciplinary experience that integrates in vivo and in silico biology