Departmental News:
Dear members of the Department of Biochemistry and Physiology,
As many of you know, the new Blue Ridge ranking was released late last week, and our Department moved up 33 spots to become #13 nationally!
We are second highest ranked Department at OUHC and the highest ranked among all basic science Departments. As the Provost nicely put it: "Thank you for your dedication to discovery, innovation, and service. This achievement belongs to you."
I am very proud of all the members of the Department, way to go! Lets keep moving up and break top 10 next year!
All the best,
Julia V. Busik, PhD, FARVO
Professor and Chair
Department of Biochemistry and Physiology
Upcoming Seminars:
Other 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 here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1103524
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".
Our faculty meeting! Always fun :-)
Congratulations to Dr. Archana Unnikrishnan and her laboratory and collaborators for their recent publication in Molecular Metabolism entitled “Maternal obesity decreases offspring lifespan.” This publication is now available online:
Congratulations to Dr. Sreemathi Logan for being awarded Fellowship in the American Aging Association (AGE). In addition, she was recently elected as President-Elect-Elect of AGE and will preside as president over the AGE 2027 Annual Meeting.
Congratulations to the labs of Drs. Karen Jonscher and Jed Friedman on their recent publication in eBioMedicine. The Impact factor for EBioMedicine is 10.2 ranking it in the top tier of journals. This publication can now be downloaded from the publisher’s website at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352396425005481?via%3Dihub
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.
Congratulations to the Flash Talk Award winners from the 2nd Annual Biochemistry and Physiology Retreat held on February 23, 2026.
1st place: Aishwarya Muppala, Dr. Veronica Galvan, mentor
2nd place: Nathan Colwell, Dr. Zhibo Yang, mentor
3rd place: Eric Moore, Dr. Archana Unnikrishnan, mentor
