ETSU: Spotlight On Biomedical Sciences Graduates

Johnson City TN

01 April, 2022

3:45 PM

Description

From East Tennessee State University: East Tennessee State University's Center of Excellence in Inflammation, Infectious Disease and Immunity (CIIDI) caught up with three recent graduates of Quillen College of Medicine's Biomedical Sciences Ph.D. program to find out what they are doing since they participated in their hooding ceremony at ETSU's Commencement on Dec. 11, 2021: Dr. Min Fan has continued to earn national recognition for her research with an American Heart Association (AHA) Postdoctoral Fellowship. The AHA Postdoctoral Fellowship promotes mentorship of postdoctoral Fellows who are embedded in a senior researcher's laboratory group. While the mentor provides significant infrastructure support and guidance, the Fellow is primarily responsible for generating both the proposal and data focusing on cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, or brain health research. Fan has trained in Dr. Chuanfu Li's laboratory since 2016. Li, who is also a CIIDI member says, "During her studies at our school, Dr. Fan has completed outstanding research work in her career development. With my mentorship, she has learned to design research experiments rigorously, uphold work ethics strongly, and value scientific communication and collaboration. She also learned writing grant proposals and manuscripts." Dr. Spencer Gill will continue his career in research and has accepted a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Warren Leonard, NIH distinguished investigator and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NIH. He will work at the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. Gill's dissertation, titled "Trained Immunity Enhances the Immune Response and Maintains Microbiome Diversity in Aging and Sepsis," investigated the effect of trained immunity (or innate immune memory) in sepsis, aging, and the microbiome. "Overall we found that trained immunity can be induced in monocytes from aging individuals and sepsis patients, Gill said. "We also found that immune training maintains healthy microbiome diversity in aging and sepsis." His doctoral advisor was CIIDI Co-Director Dr. David L. Williams, Carroll H. Long Professor in the Department of Surgery. Dr. Amy Gravitte has accepted a post-doctoral position with Dr. Michael Kruppa, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences. Her dissertation, "Genital Chlamydia Infection is Influenced by the Female Sex Hormones Estrogen and Progesterone in Vivo" studied the effects of female sex hormones on Chlamydia infection in mice. Gravitte describes her research: "My project focused on, first, how estrogen- and/or progesterone- dominant conditions influence Chlamydia infection in mice, and, secondly, how estrogen receptors, and their absence, influence Chlamydia infection in mice. My main findings were that estrogen treatment protects mice from Chlamydia and that estrogen receptor alpha is involved in the progression of chlamydial infection in mice." Dr. Jennifer Hall, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, served as faculty advisor. "Dr. Hall was tremendously supportive. I can't give her enough credit for how helpful she was throughout my graduate career," Gravitte said. Both Kruppa and Hall are members of the Center of Excellence in Inflammation Infectious Disease and Immunity. This press release was produced by East Tennessee State University. The views expressed are the author's own.