ASCEND Trainees and Mentors

Position: Associate Professor

Department of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology

Institution: University of Utah

Trainee: Dave Dumaguit

Research: 

The Holland lab is focused on elucidating the mechanisms by which excess lipids impair cellular function.  Our work has identified ceramides, a cellular metabolite derived from saturated fat and amino acids, as causal factors in diabetes, heart failure and acute kidney injury.  Though it is clear that cellular stress and excess dietary intake contribute to increased formation of ceramides, our understanding of the genetic landscape that favors ceramide formation in response to environmental cues remains limited.  The Diversity Outbred (DO) mouse panel, generated from the outbreeding of eight founder strains, offers an ideal discovery platform to identify genetic drivers of ceramides. Lipidomic, genomic, and transcriptomic data from DO mice are enabling us to pinpoint quantitative traits (ceramides) driven by genetic loci.  We are pairing the discovery-potential of the DO platform with the power of family-based human genetics—an approach that has allowed us to identify rare and distinct mutations that underlie familial hyperceramidemia. Our data suggest that patients with hyperceramidemia are at high risk for diabetes and kidney disease.  Indeed, hallmark molecular drivers of kidney tubule injury include lipotoxicity, mitochondrial dysfunction, and cell death – pathologies sharing an established link to ceramide accumulation. We seek to understand the role of ceramide accrual in kidney injury and disease in vivo with targeted genetic and pharmacological approaches. Identification of at-risk patients could allow for precise therapeutic interventions with ceramide-lowering medications to improve quality of life. Our mechanistic studies will further our understanding of sphingolipid metabolism in different cell populations of the kidney and contribute to therapeutic development for kidney disease.

Keith Neeves, PhD

Position: Professor, Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Pediatrics 

Institution: University of Colorado Anschutz

Trainee: Eric Barrientos

Research: 

Our research groups uses biophysical and computational approaches to discover mechanisms that regulate blood disorders and to exploit those mechanisms to new develop diagnostic and drug delivery technologies.

Christian Mosimann, PhD

Position: Associate Professor, The Helen & Arthur E. Johnson Chair for the Cardiac Research Director

Department of Pediatrics, Section of Developmental Biology

Institution: University of Colorado Anschutz

Trainee: Harrison Wells

Research: The Mosimann lab studies the developmental mechanisms of cell fate emergence from the lateral plate mesoderm, including cardiovascular, hematopoietic, and kidney lineages. The lab uses zebrafish as principal model, applying and developing latest approaches for genetic lineage tracing, gene-regulatory element discovery, transgenesis, and live imaging towards uncovering disease-relevant developmental mechanisms.

Eric Pietras, PhD

Position: Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology

Institution: University of Colorado Anschutz

Trainee: Katia Niño

Research: The overall goal of my laboratory is to identify targetable mechanisms by which blood-forming hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPC) contribute to disease pathogenesis. We seek to understand how the pathogenic interplay between inflammation and metabolism contributes to leukemogenesis and autoimmunity. We use these studies to identify ways to disrupt this interplay, thereby promoting healthy blood system function and reducing disease risk and/or progression. Altogether, our mission is to make clinically translatable discoveries that positively impact human health.

Tom Greene, PhD

Position: Professor of Population Health Sciences and Internal Medicine, Divisions of Biostatistics and Epidemiology

Institution: University of Utah

Trainee: Michael Throolin

Research: Tom Greene leads the development of statistical methodology for the CKD-EPI (CT) consortium, which focusses on clinical trials design and validation and application of surrogate endpoints for clinical trials in kidney disease. The CKD-EPI (CT) consortium’s work has guided applications of changes in albuminuria and estimated GFR slope in clinical trials for chronic kidney disease.

Position: Professor and Chief of Urology, Genitourinary Injury and Reconstructive Urology

Institution: University of Utah Department of Surgery

Trainee: Charles Schlaepfer

Research: Dr. Myers’ research focuses on three aspects of genitourinary injury and reconstructive urology. These include the delayed effects of pelvic radiotherapy on patients after the treatment of cancer, understanding the current management and treatment of genitourinary trauma, and translational research into the pathophysiology of urethral stricture disease and fibrosis in the urinary tract. All of these areas have ongoing research with collaborators within the Division of Urology, the great University of Utah, and nationally. 

Hans Haecker, MD, PhD

Position: Professor of Pathology 

Institution: University of Utah

Trainee: Clara Frazier

Research: The major focus of our lab is on innate immunity and inflammation, with projects ranging from molecular mechanisms of signal transduction to translational aspects of hematopoiesis and drug development. We explore how innate immune cells differentiate under various conditions, how they recognize and respond to pathogens, how genetic mutations in innate immunity contribute to inflammatory and auto-immune diseases, and how obtained information can be used to develop novel therapeutic strategies.

Kerrie Moreau, PhD

Position: Professor, Division of Geriatrics

Institution: University of Colorado Anschutz

Trainee: Emily Larson

Research: 

Dr. Moreau’s research investigates the mechanisms underlying sex and gender differences in cardiovascular aging, and specifically how changes in ovarian function and sex hormones during the menopause transition in women contributes to accelerated cardiovascular and brain aging. As an exercise physiologist, she also investigates sex differences in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular adaptations to exercise and the modulatory influence of sex hormones and is using artificial intelligence to better understand how sex differences in the biology of aging and the molecular transducers of exercise, mediates exercise response variation in vascular benefits, particularly in postmenopausal women. Recently, Dr. Moreau has expanded her work to evaluate the effects of trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder on cardiovascular and brain aging.

Kristen Nowak, PhD

Institution: University of Colorado Anschutz

Trainee: Jigar Gosalia

Research: I am trained as a physiologist with an interest in lifestyle interventions to reduce risk of cardiovascular disease and kidney disease progression in patients with kidney diseases, including autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease

Position: Assistant Professor, Renal Diseases and Hypertension

Institution: University of Colorado Anschutz

Trainee: Jigar Gosalia

Research: