Fall 2020 Newsletter

Fall 2020

Mission: Perform state-of-the-art anatomic and physiologic research

and education to enhance human health and prepare our trainees for careers in biomedical research and healthcare professions.

Words from the Chair

Welcome to the end of the year newsletter! I first want to say THANK YOU to everyone for the warm welcome you gave me as I came on board in March and also for ALL of your efforts over what has undoubtedly been a year we will not soon forget. Despite the numerous challenges that no one could have foreseen, I have been extremely impressed at how everyone stepped up, got things done, and truly accomplished so much. As you will see throughout the newsletter, we have a lot to be proud of and a lot to look forward to. I wish all of you a healthy and happy holiday season and am optimistically looking forward to working with, and getting to know, each of you more (hopefully less virtually) as we continue to move the department and the HSC forward.

All the best,

Johnathan Tune

New Faculty in Physiology and Anatomy

Dr. Gregory Dick joined the Department of Physiology and Anatomy in March of 2020 as Research Associate Professor. Greg has held faculty positions at LSU Health Sciences Center, West Virginia University School of Medicine and most recently California Medical Innovations. His research focuses on ion channel function and smooth muscle reactivity as they relate to regulation of coronary blood flow.

Dr. Lauren Gonzales joined the Department of Physiology and Anatomy in August of 2020 as Assistant Professor. Lauren was trained at Duke University and the Florida Museum of Natural History. Her research focuses on primate sensory anatomy and evolution.

Dr. Mark Cunningham was successfully recruited from the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, MS. Mark will join us as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology and Anatomy starting March 2021. His research focuses on hypertension in pregnancy and pre-eclampsia.

New Changes Coming in 2021!

Two major renovation projects are slated to start in December 2020 for the Center for Anatomical Sciences within the Department of Physiology and Anatomy. The first is the new clinical skills training research facility officially branded by the HSC as the “BioSkills of North Texas”. This facility will be located on the west end of the 2^nd floor of RES and will house the new 2000 square foot bioskills laboratory. In addition to the lab, there will be a registration area for patrons, a 70-seat classroom with an adjacent space for setting up catered food for guest, men and women’s locker rooms that adjoin the restrooms and bioskills lab, and a lounge area by the RES 2^nd floor entrance. This new bioskills facility connects through the chase to the larger anatomy teaching laboratory on the north end of the building so that large skills-training events can be scheduled with local and national vendors. Around $2M in HEF funds were approved for this facility.

The second major renovation is located next to JPS Hospital and the Tarrant County Medical Examiners office. This facility is now referred to as the May Street Anatomy Facility. We are in the process of renovating this space owned by the HSC to eventually house more storage space for the Willed Body Program. This facility will add over 300 cooler spaces and 140 freezer spaces for our donors. In addition, there will be embalming stations located there, as well as two new state-of-the-art alkaline hydrolysis cremation units for cremating donors to our Willed Body Program. Renovations were made possible by HEF funds from the HSC that exceeded $2.5M.

A message from the New Assistant Dean of Specialized Master’s Degree Programs

I didn’t imagine that I would start a position like this during a pandemic. My first weeks as the Director of the Medical Sciences Program were focused on rapidly transitioning our spring classes to an online format and ensuring our students would graduate on time. The support of Dr. Michael Mathis, the faculty and staff in the GSBS Deans office, and the Department Chairs were vital during this time. We were also learning how to use Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and other virtual communication tools with our students and faculty and engage each other during lockdown. Dr. Goulopoulou organized a weekly zoom to keep us all connected during this time and I enjoyed learning more about our faculty, postdocs, staff, and students. We also had some great recipes shared and I still want to try some of Dr. Menegaz’s baking.

In June I accepted the position as the Assistant Dean of the Specialized Masters Programs. The first week of June was spent delivering the Medical Science students their laptops as curbside pick-up. The Office of Student Affairs and Carla Johnson were top notch at organizing this and it ran very smoothly. We also had several faculty, student, and staff volunteers there to welcome our new students and hand out gift bags.

We held our first Zoom application workshop the first week of June which was very exciting because we were able to include a lot more guest speakers and panelists from medical and dental schools in Texas and out-of-state. Derrick Smith organized this and it was a great success. At this time the fall faculty were developing their online courses. The Center for Innovative Learning and Drs. John Planz and Brandy Roane were lifesavers through this and they are continuing to collaborate with our spring faculty.

By the end of June, we were all Zoom pros and it was beginning to feel fairly normal. However, many of our students were anxious about the fall semester and it was difficult to not have news about returning to campus. Once we realized the fall was also going to be remote learning, the fall faculty began to develop their COVID distance learning courses in addition to developing their online courses.

Admittedly, the fall semester had a challenging start with implementing the different teaching formats in both online and face-to-face cohorts but the semester ended very well. The faculty teaching at the start of the fall term deserve extra praise since this was new ground and they walked it first. They have shared their experience with us to help us continue to improve the program and now our spring faculty are working hard to deliver outstanding teaching next semester.

The anatomy courses have been a major strength of all our programs at UNTHSC. Dr. Rusty Reeves and the anatomy faculty went the extra mile this fall to develop a plan that will give our face-to-face medical science students the cadaver lab experience next spring. Dr. Scott Maddux regularly joined our student-focused meeting Zooms to answer student questions about the spring anatomy plans. The physiology faculty have also worked tirelessly to redesign the physiology course for the online cohort. All of the spring faculty in the face-to-face cohort have designed live Zoom activities to engage our students and foster teamwork.

I want to mention a few people that deserve special attention. Dr. Gwirtz developed the Specialized MS Programs and we know she set a very high standard for running the programs. Her mentorship and friendship over the years prepared me to serve the GSBS in this unprecedented time. She is continuing to assist the program as a faculty advisor and consultant. I have also discovered that Carla Johnson, Derrick Smith, and their teams are the foundation of our all our GSBS programs. They have supported me in ways that I cannot easily put into words; I need a separate article just for them. The most important thing that I have learned during the first six months as Assistant Dean of the Specialized MS programs is that I am very fortunate to work with so many amazing people.

-Lisa Hodge

Congratulations to the Willed Body Program!

In March of 2020 the Willed Body Program (WBP) was awarded two contracts, with details of those contracts forthcoming. These contracts enable WBP staff to pick up deceased individuals, coordinate disposition details with family members, and ask family members to consider donating to the HSC’s WBP. These donations support our anatomy courses and are used for medical education, training, and research purposes.

Dr. Maddux receives a prestigious award from the National Science Foundation

Climatically adaptive body types for humans according to ecogeographic rules related to body mass (Bergmann’s Rule) and limb proportions (Allen’s Rule). These rules suggest that a heavier, shorter-limbed body promotes heat conservation in cold environments, while a more linear body form facilitates heat dissipation in hot environments.

Dr. Scott Maddux, along with colleagues from University of Notre Dame and University of Missouri, has received a prestigious grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Human anatomy varies widely around the world, with many features (e.g., head shape, torso dimensions, limb proportions, overall body size) thought to reflect local climatic pressures. However, such assertions are largely based on humans conforming to ecogeographic rules (e.g., Bergmann’s rule, Allen’s rule, Thomson’s rule, Gloger’s rule), rather than demonstrable evidence that certain anatomical features actually confer thermoregulatory benefits in a given climate. Our NSF-funded project thus seeks to experimentally investigate how differences in head, trunk, and limb anatomy influence thermoregulation in human subjects exposed to various climatic conditions. This will involve combining detailed anthropometric data from whole-body CT scans with physiological data collected using a walk-in environmental chamber (to be installed in EAD 322). Contingent on a number of logistical issues, we hope to begin data collection as early as June 2021. Dr. Steven Romero has also recently joined our research team and we are excited about the contributions his expertise in human thermoregulatory physiology will bring to the project. National Science Foundation (SBE - Biological Anthropology) #2020715: “Experimental testing of thermoregulatory principles: Re-evaluating ecogeographic rules in living humans”. PI: Scott Maddux, UNTHSC ($406,591); Co-PIs: Cara Ocobock, University of Notre Dame ($46,643); Libby Cowgill, University of Missouri ($45,761). Total project: $498,995.00. 9/1/2020 – 8/31/2024.

Dr. Goulopoulou is awarded the R01 from the NIH National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute

Preeclampsia is pregnancy-specific disorder and one of the leading causes of maternal deaths during pregnancy and after birth. Women with preeclampsia develop hypertension and damage of vital organs after 20th week of gestation. Currently, there is no cure for preeclampsia and physicians often have to induce premature delivery to alleviate the maternal symptoms. Dr. Stella Goulopoulou received a 5-year, multi-million dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the physiological mechanisms responsible for the development of preeclampsia. For the next five years, Stella and her team will perform experimental studies to understand how the placenta releases pro-inflammatory factors in the maternal blood and how these factors cause maternal hypertension and vascular dysfunction. The long-term goal of Dr. Goulopoulou’s lab is to identify physiological mechanisms that cause preeclampsia so they can be used as pharmacological targets.

Haley Barnes, MS

Bradley D’Souza, MS

Salma Omar, MS

Deborah Osikoya, PhD

Grace Pham, DO, PhD

Christopher Roig, MS

Jeff Rossiter, MS

Ashley Steele, MS

Jonathan Sweeney, MS

Elizabeth Thai, MS

We are all so proud of you!

Faculty

Dr. Styliani Goulopoulou

Published manuscript "Cell-free mitochondrial DNA increases in maternal circulation during healthy pregnancy: a prospective, longitudinal study" in AJP - Regulatory, Integrative, Comparative Physiology

Dr. Andras Lacko

Published manuscript "Probing the Assembly of HDL Mimetic, Drug Carrying Nanoparticles, using Intrinsic Fluorescence" in Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics 2020

Dr. Rong Ma

Received American Heart Association Transformational Project Award

Dr. Scott Maddux

Awarded National Science Foundation (SBE - Biological Anthropology) grant for "Collaborative Research: Experimental testing of thermoregulatory principles: Re-evaluating ecogeographic rules of living humans"

Dr. Keisa Mathis

Published manuscript “Chronic unilateral cervical vagotomy reduces renal inflammation, blood pressure, and renal injury in a mouse model of lupus” in the American Journal of Physiology - Renal
Published editorial with Caroline Lima "When Memory Does Not Serve You Well" in Circulation Research
Awarded NIH Loan Repayment Program

Dr. Rachel Menegaz

Published manuscript "Craniofacial allometry in the OIM^-/- mouse model of osteogenesis imperfecta" in The FASEB Journal

Dr. Caroline Rickards

Received American Heart Association Career Development Award - Clinical Sciences Peer Review Study Group
Published manuscript "A Comparison of Protocols for Simulating Hemorrhage in Humans: Step vs. Ramp Lower Body Negative Pressure" in the Journal of Applied Physiology

Dr. Steven Romero

Awarded Alzheimer's-focused Administrative Supplement to existing R01 from NIH

Postdoctoral Research Associates

Dr. Sarika Chaudhari (Ma lab)

Awarded American Heart Association postdoctoral fellowship for study entitled "Store Operated Calcium Entry in Mesangial Cells Suppresses Renal Inflammation and Injury in Diabetic Nephropathy"

Students

Garen Anderson (Rickards lab)

Awarded American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship

Spencer Cushen (Goulopoulou lab)

Awarded National Institutes of Health T32/NBAAD predoctoral fellowship for study entitled "Maternal vascular responses to extracellular mitochondrial DNA during pregnancy"

Alexa Kelly (Maddux lab)

Awarded Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant

A complete list of articles published within the past 5 years by members of the Department of Physiology and Anatomy can be found here. For more specific detail on investigators, their labs and/or projects please visit the Physiology and Anatomy website or HSC Experts page.

Goulopoulou Lab

Dr. Stella Goulopoulou: served in Pregnancy and Neonatology NIH Study Section; interviewed by the Hellenic Bioscientific Association of the USA; organized and chaired WCBH 2020 symposium
Deborah Osikoya, PhD student: completed dissertation defense with distinction; invited to be Keynote Speaker at Lee University's Annual Scientific Research Symposium 2021

Ma Lab

Sarika Chaudhari, MD, PhD: awarded 2019 Young Investigator Award from SEBM; received a UNTHSC Postdoctoral Travel Award to attend EB 2019

Maddux Lab

Dr. Scott Maddux: appointed as Faculty member, National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners
Alexa Kelly, PhD student: served as Anthroplogy Section Chair for the Texas Academy of Science; invited as a guest speaker at alma mater, Florida State University

Menegaz Lab

Dr. Rachel Menegas, PhD: invited webinar, Forensics Technology Center of Excellence, "Taking 3D measurements with New Mexico Decedent Image Database; invited speaker, Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation Virtual Young Investigators Symposium

Mathis Lab

Dr. Keisa Mathis: appointed Associate Editor, American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative, Comparative Physiology;

Mathis Lab

Dr. Keisa Mathis (continued): appointed Chair, Membership and Communications Committee, American Heart Association Council on Hypertension; served as Early Career Reviewer for Pathobiology of Kidney Disease (PBKD) Study Section, NIH; appointed JAMP Alternate Council; served as member of newly established GSBS Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee; invited speaker, WCBH 2020 symposium; invited speaker, LSU Health Science Center Physiology Hot Seminar Series Summer 2020; invited speaker, UNT Biomedical Engineering Seminar Series Fall 2020; selected to serve as member of the American Physiological Society Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee
Rusty Hartman, PhD student: invited to speak at Fireside Chat during the ASN 2020 Kidney Week
Grace Pham, PhD student: completed dissertation defense with distinction
Bradley D'Souza, MedSci student: completed research practicum with distinction

Reeves Lab

Dr. Rusty Reeves, PhD: honored as an HSC 50 Heroes

Rickards Lab

Dr. Caroline Rickards: served as an Early Career Reviewer on the NIH Hypertension & Microcirculation (HM) Study Section; appointed to the American Physiological Society Committee on Committees (Exercise & Environmental Physiology Section representative); hosted TABS students for lectures and lab demonstrations
Haley Barnes, MedSci student: graduated

2020 Student 3MT Competition Winners

Join me in congratulating the winners of the three-minute thesis (3MT) competition that took place on December 1, 2020. This year I incorporated peer coaching for first time to provide an opportunity for learning how to work as a team to improve each other’s skills. I list below the winners for individual presentations and the peer-coaching team with the highest score. Please note that 2 of the winners are MS students. I am impressed and proud of all of you.

—Dr. G

Individual presentations

1st place: Ryan Rusy, MS student (Med Sci Research track)

Presentation title: Blood. To give or not to give?

Lab: Dr. Caroline Rickards

2nd place: Dianna Nguyen, DO/PhD student

Presentation title: Sex Differences in a Model of Dilutional Hyponatremia: Are Estrogen Receptors Involved?

Lab: Dr. Tom Cunningham

3rd place: Jordan Gardner, MS student (Traditional program)

Presentation title: Does hypoxia impair the autophagy process in placental cells?

Lab: Dr. Stella Goulopoulou

Peer-coaching – winning team

Jordan Gardner – Dianna Nguyen

Dr. Ladislav Dory retired this year from his role as Professor of Physiology and Anatomy following over 27 years of dedicated service to the HSC. You can follow Dr. Dory on Instagram, where he apparently appears to be enjoying his retirement!

Dr. Patricia Gwirtz retired from her role as Associate Dean of Education at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in the summer of 2020 after 38 years to the HSC. To read more about Patricia's legacy, click here.

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Drs. Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice for their joint work on the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus. Read more about it here.

Grace Pham (Mathis lab) was one of the first PhD candidates to defend her dissertation using the emergency virtual format due to COVID-19 closures in April. Click here to read more about Grace’s story.

Dr. Stella Goulopoulou made the news this year when was interviewed by the Hellenic Bioscientific Association of the USA. Click here to read the interview.

Just when you think 2020 could not get any more interesting, scientists discovered a new organ in the fall! The tubarial gland, a gland similar to major salivary gland, was discovered in October 2020 serendipitously by scientist studying effects of cancer radiotherapy on salivary glands using PET and CT scans. Click here to learn of other mind-blowing physiology and anatomy headlines in 2020.

Women's Cardiovascular & Brain Health Symposium 2020

On January 31, 2020, the Department of Physiology and Anatomy held its second annual symposium on brain and cardiovascular health in women (WBCH 2020). Speakers included Farida Sohrabji, PhD (Professor and Interim Chair, Department of Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics and Director, Women’s Health in Neuroscience Program, Texas A&M College of Medicine), Margie Davenport, PhD (Associate Professor, Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation and Director of the Program for Pregnancy and Postpartum Health, University of Alberta, Canada) and Keisa Mathis, PhD (Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology & Anatomy, University of North Texas Health Science Center). Symposium highlights included a trainee research showcase and a discussion panel with community stakeholders! Members of the UNTHSC Department of Physiology and Anatomy worked together on the organizational committee to make this conference come to life.

Journal Club News

The Ma and Mathis labs have many common interests, particularly renal pathophysiology of disease, so why not start a Journal Club?! The first virtual joint Ma-Mathis Journal Club kicked off on September 23, 2020. The journal club is organized by Dr. Sarika Chaudhari.

2020 Cultural Night Celebration

Deborah Osikoya (Goulopoulou lab) led a team as President of an international Student Association, raising $1055 in profit during the annual

Cultural Night celebration on February 21, 2020. The funds collected will be used to support International Student Travel Awards. Deborah also raised $329 in ticket donations from local businesses in Fort Worth & Arlington while serving as president.

Celebrations of Life and Love

Cassandra Young-Stubbs (Mathis lab) had a beautiful baby girl, Camora Caisley Stubbs, on June 4, 2020. Since then Camora has made several appearances at virtual lab meetings! The pictures show Camora at one week and one month old. Mom and Dad, Tony, are doing great and beaming with joy.

Rusty Hartman (Mathis lab) married his college sweetheart, Caroline, on June 20, 2020. Many had a chance to witness the wedding virtually.

Dr. Emma Handler (formerly Wood) married her fiancé Dan in a small ceremony in the Montana mountains on July 18, 2020 surrounded by a small group of friends and family.