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Welcome to our Department!

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Biochemistry and Physiology

Message from the Chair of Biochemistry and Physiology Department Dr. Julia V. Busik, PhD, FARVO 

It’s been another great month for the Department of Biochemistry and Physiology. We continue to thrive in research, education, and service mission, thanks to the dedication and hard work of our faculty, trainees, and staff– see “good news” below. This semester, we celebrate successful tenure (Dr. Proshlyakov) and promotion and tenure (Dr. Sathyaseelan)decisions of our faculty members – well deserved Deepa and Denis! We welcome Dr. Matt Potthoff as a new faculty member who brings fresh expertise and enthusiasm to our research community. As we move forward, I particularly encourage everyone to engage in Biochemistry and Physiology student seminars, as well as Johnson & Sokatch, HHDC, and Departmental guest speaker lectures.

Current and Upcoming Events

Departmental News:



Congratulation to Dr. Arlan Richardson from Dept of Biochemistry and Physiology for receiving an award from the American Federation for Aging Research.

The award information is herehttps://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1103524





Upcoming Seminars:

Here is link to the paper:





Other Departmental News:

Benjamin Nelson, PhD, a post-doc in Dr. Jed Friedman’s lab, won the first-place award in his breakout session at the HHDC Research Symposium November 14, 2025. Presented by Dr. Ann Louise Olson. His talk was titled "Single-Cell Liver Transcriptomic Reveals Liver Sinusoidal Endothelial Cell Expansion and Immune Tolerance in Western-style Diet Exposed Juvenile Nonhuman Primates".



Huge congratulations to (now officially!) Dr. Phoebe Ohene-Marfo on her successful dissertation defense!



Huge congratulations to (now officially!) Dr. Gertrude Kyere-Davies on her successful dissertation defense!



Huge congratulations to (now) Dr. Sandra Gostyńska on a successful dissertation defense!



Our faculty meeting! Always fun :-)



Congratulations to the Dr. Carlos Diaz-Garcia Lab and their collaborators for their recent publication in the PNAS. This publication can now be found on the publisher’s website: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2519902122



Congratulations to Dr. Matt Baier and the Dr. Sreemathi Logan Lab for their recent publication in Aging and Disease.   Dr. Baier, the first author in this publication, was an MD/PhD student in Dr. Logan's laboratory who recently graduated. The published study was part of his dissertation work.

This publication is now available on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41082300/



Congratulations to the Dr. Carlos Diaz-Garcia Lab and their collaborators for their recent publication in the Journal of Physiology.

This publication can now be found on the publisher’s website:  http://doi.org/10.1113/JP287618.



Congratulations to Dr. Xin Zhang and his collaborators with publication of their research paper in Nature Cardiovascular Research!

Press release for this publication can be found here



Congratulations to a PhD student, Sandra Gostynska, and her research supervisor, Dr. Augen Pioszak, with publishing a research paper in Science Signaling. 
Press release for this publication can be found here
and here



Congratulations to Dr. Tiangang Li with receiving an R01 grant! 💐🥂
1R01 DK117965 (2/5/2019 – 4/30/2030) 
Title: Regulation of bile acid metabolism and signaling in metabolic diseases
Role: PI
Goal: To investigate Gly-MCA as a novel agent to treat hepatobiliary injury in cholestasis.



 



Holiday Party!





 

More Events and Seminars >