Dr. Robert Rhoads, Professor Emeritus in LSUHS Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology shares how work in his lab carried out in collaboration with researchers in Poland and Germany over 30 years is playing a part in the BioNTech/Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine trials.

LSUHS leadership, faculty, staff, students and community supporters recently honored the continued growth of research initiatives and funding at the second annual Research Celebration event held on February 25, 2020.

Dr. Stephan N. Witt, Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry, was recently named a Senior Fellow of the Cell Stress Society International (CSSI).

Praveen K. Jaiswal, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology has received a prestigious Research Scholar Award for Mentored Prostate Cancer Research from the AUA Urology Care Foundation.

Scientists have identified a key gene - eIF4G1 - that shows grade and stage specific upregulation in prostate cancer and is overexpressed and/or amplified in the majority of cases of CRPC.

Congratulations to Dr. Eric First for being elected to the LSU Health Shreveport Faculty Senate! His two year term began 1 July 2019.

Congratulations to Dr. Hari K Koul for being awarded an NCI-NIH RO1 grant entitled, “Prostate Cancer Health Disparity: Role of PDEF”

Pictured left to right: Rini Ravindran, Amoldeep Kainth, and Karnika Singh.

Congratulations to Dr. Stephan N. Witt for being awarded an R15 AREA grant entitled, “The role of alpha-synuclein in Snx3-retromer mediated recycling of membrane proteins.” The grant provides Dr. Witt with $100,000 per year each year for three years.

Paper accepted by the International Journal of Cancer. Title : Targeting the TLK1/NEK1 DDR axis with Thioridazine suppresses outgrowth of Androgen Independent Prostate tumors

Third-year graduate student Linda S. Rubio was awarded Biochemistry Graduate Student of the Year at Graduate Research Day, April 26, 2019.  Linda is a member of the Gross Lab and follows in the footsteps of two other PhD students from that lab.

Congratulations to Erika Knott for being awarded a Carroll Feist Predoctoral Fellowship. Erika is a graduate student in Dr. Nancy Leidenheimer’s lab.

Since July 1, 2018, 17 new research grants have been awarded to LSU Health Shreveport researchers, totaling more than $14 million dollars in funding.

Paper accepted in Cell Reports. Title: Heat Shock Factor 1 Drives Intergenic Association of Its Target Gene Loci Upon Heat Shock.

The grant entitled, “The role of alpha-synuclein in Snx3-retromer mediated recycling of membrane proteins.” provides Dr. Witt with $100,000 per year each year for three years.

Rini Ravindran was featured in the ‘First Person’ section in the Journal of Cell Science. ‘First Person’ is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers.

The latest publication from Kelly Tatchell’s lab was featured in the Research Highlights section in the Journal of Cell Science.

Rini Ravindran presented a talk titled “New ubiquitin-dependent mechanisms regulating the Aurora B-Protein Phosphatase 1 balance in S. cerevisiae” at the International FASEB conference on Protein Phosphatases.