‘Molecular Physiology and Biophysics’
2022 Dean’s Award winners announced
Aug. 8, 2022—By Lorena Infante Lara Thanks to their high academic and scientific achievement, nine graduate students have been named recipients of the 2022 Dean’s Award for Exceptional Achievement in Graduate Studies. The students were recognized for the originality, significance, and rigor of their dissertation research. The awardees were selected by a committee made up of the...
Weight cycling increases diabetes risk
Jul. 14, 2022—By Emily Overway Alyssa Hasty, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, specializes in immunometabolism, specifically on the role that the immune system plays in obesity and metabolic disease. Recent work from her lab explored the changes in immune cell populations in fat during obesity, weight loss, and weight cycling. The work, led by...
Collaborative research yields new protein structure
May. 16, 2022—By Emily Overway Recent collaborative research, published in Science Advances, used cryo-electron microscopy to determine the structure of caveolin-1 and how many individual caveolin-1 proteins join to form a complex. Caveolin-1 proteins bend the plasma membrane to form indentations known as caveolae, which sense and respond to changes in membrane tension. The labs of Hassane...
Cryo-EM reveals the molecular mechanism of IP3 receptor channel opening
May. 6, 2022—By Emily Overway Research led by co-first authors Emily Schmitz, a graduate student in the Chemical and Physical Biology program, and Hirohide Takahashi, a research instructor in molecular physiology and biophysics, identified the structure of the human type-3 inositol 1,4,5-triphosphate, or IP3, receptor in several conformations using cryo-electron microscopy. Schmitz and Takahasi, who work in...
Carrasco elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Apr. 29, 2022—The American Academy of Arts and Sciences announced today that Dr. Nancy Carrasco, Joe C. Davis Professor of Biomedical Science and professor and chair of molecular physiology and biophysics, has been elected as one of its new members. Carrasco was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2015 and to the National Academy of...
Improving insulin sensitivity
Mar. 15, 2022—By Wendy Bindeman Ambra Pozzi, professor of medicine and of molecular physiology and biophysics, first author Kakali Ghoshal (a postdoc in the Pozzi lab), and colleagues recently published a study showing that supplementation with an analog of a lipid metabolite called epoxyeicosatrienoic acid, which is involved in insulin signaling, reverses insulin resistance in the livers...