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CTSA T32 at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Principal Investigators: Drs. Yong-Hee Patricia Chun and Christopher Frei

Funding Source: National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences

The GSBS would like to congratulate the Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Fellows who were appointed to the CTSA T32 Grant for the 2024-2025 Academic year. This achievement is a testament to their dedication, hardwork, and commitment to translational science.

The Translational Science Training (TST) Program provides predoctoral and postdoctoral Trainees with innovative programming to help them develop those skills in team science, innovation, and scientific rigor necessary for a successful career in Translational Science (TS). These T32 programs are developing a highly skilled workforce to efficiently advance patient-focused research from preclinical and clinical settings to clinical implementation and population health. The programs provide training in rigorous research, process innovation, systems thinking, and boundary crossing, along with team science, to accelerate transformative breakthroughs and facilitate work in highly skilled, multidisciplinary teams that address threats to human health.

CTSA T32 Predoctoral Trainees

Leen Abazid

Mentor: Dr. Peter Fox

Program: Ph.D. in Radiological Sciences

Research Topic: Brain Alterations in Obesity and Eating Disorders: A Coordinate-Based Meta-Analysis of Case-Control Studies

Kaitlyn Bejar

Mentor: Dr. Robin Leach

Program: PhD- Integrated Biomedical Sciences, Cell Biology Genetics and Molecular Medicine Discipline

Research topic: N-glycans to predict prostate adenocarcinoma outcome and the factors that influence them

Marissa Brown

Mentor: Dr. Geoffrey Clarke

Program: Ph.D. in Radiological Sciences

Research Topic: Magnetic Resonance (MR) Biomarkers for Hepatic Metabolism in Humans with Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD)

Marissa’s work as a T32 trainee will focus on using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy (MRS) for the assessment of liver disease under the mentorship of Dr. Geoffrey Clarke at the Research Imaging Institute. MRI and MRS technology can non-invasively influence the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). 1H-MRS has already been proven to be an accurate method for determining fat fraction in the liver; whether diffusion MRI will provide a clinically useful assessment of liver fibrosis remains unconfirmed. While limited, recent literature on the metabolic effects of liver disease through measurements of phosphorus-31 metabolite concentrations exists. Over the next few years, she plans on investigating methods for assessment of liver disease leading to improved diagnosis and treatment.

Paulomi Modi

Mentor: Dr. Myron Ignatius

Program: PhD- Integrated Biomedical Sciences, Cancer Biology Discipline

Research topic: SNAI2 transcriptional repression of both BIM and BCL-xL downstream of RAS-MEK signaling results in a cytostatic rather than cytotoxic apoptotic response

George Parra

Mentor: Dr. David Libich

Program: PhD- Integrated Biomedical Sciences, Biochemical Mechanisms of Medicine

Research topic: Understanding structural and dynamic effects of the EWS-FLI1 interactome on the EWS low complexity domain function

Jonathan Towne*

Mentor: Dr. Peter Fox

Program: South Texas Medical Scientist Training Program (MD/PhD Program)

UTHSCSA Student Profile

Research Topic: Medial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) is the most common seizure disorder referred for surgery; although MTLE often responds well to surgery, accurate determination of seizure-onset laterality is critical for surgical success because bilateral treatment causes profound amnesia. For my dissertation, I am developing an imaging biomarker to predict seizure-onset laterality in MTLE using state-of-the-art network modeling techniques. The modeling approach is grounded in meta-analysis and validated in primary resting-state fMRI data acquired at multiple epilepsy centers, ensuring that the biomarker is rigorously defined and reproducibly accurate. This biomarker will address the unmet clinical need for a quantitative metric for noninvasively determining seizure- onset laterality in MTLE.

Kathleen (Kate) Tuite

Mentor: Dr. David Morilak

Program: Ph.D. in Integrated Biomedical Sciences, Neuroscience Discipline

UTHSCSA Student Profile

Research Topic: Kate studies the neural circuits underlying cognitive flexibility and how they are disrupted by mental illness and chronic stress. Their project aims to target these circuits to reverse the effects of chronic stress on cognitive flexibility to develop new therapeutics for mental illness.

Anne Wells*

Mentor: Dr. Noboru Hiroi

Program: South Texas Medical Scientist Training Program (MD/PhD Program)

UTHSCSA Student Profile

Research topic: Anne is studying the neurodevelopmental role of Tbx1, a gene within a commonly deleted segment of 22q11.2 gene locus, as a driver gene for cognitive deficits seen across neuropsychiatric diseases, and its effect on downstream target FoxG1, a critical gene for myelination of the forebrain

*Jonathan Towne and Anne Wells are CSTA T32 Alumni

CTSA T32 Postdoctoral Trainees

Iriscilla Ayala, Ph.D.

Mentor: Dr. Luke Norton

Program: Translational Science Program

Research Topic: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) affects approximately 30-40% of Americans—and its occurrence increases to 40-80% among people with Type 2 Diabetes (T2D). Single nucleotide polymorphisms in the transcription factor 7-like 2 (TCF7L2) gene are highly associated with NAFLD and T2D. The metabolic function of TCF7L2 in the liver remains to be fully elucidated, but we hypothesized that TCF7L2 contributes to NAFLD through the regulation of zonal metabolic pathways. We disrupted Tcf7l2 transcriptional activity by utilizing Cre/lox system to specifically target the murine liver. Eight-week-old control and modified mice were fed a choline-deficient amino acid-defined high fat (CDAHFD) diet for 8 weeks to investigate the role of TCF7L2 in hepatic fibrogenesis. Post-CDAHFD, modified mice developed more severe fibrosis in histological analysis, expressed elevated levels of genes involved in fibrogenesis, collagen synthesis, TGFβ signaling, and elevated cholesterol accumulation. These results demonstrate that TCF7L2 is a critical transcriptional regulator of hepatic metabolism.

Cody Black, PharmD, Ph.D.

Mentor: Dr. Grace Lee

Program: Translational Science Program

Research Topic: Clinical and molecular epidemiology of multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections in immunosuppressed hosts

Alison Luckey, Ph.D.

Mentor: Dr. Claudia Satizabal

Program: Translational Science Program

Research Topic: Within the Population Neuroscience Core of the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases at UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, I work with well-characterized population-based cohorts with a broad set of neurological, biomarker, cardiovascular, and genomic data. Currently, I am focused on two projects. The first aims to perform a biological validation of a neuroimaging marker of white matter injury for future implementation in dementia clinical trials in the MarkVCID consortium, which results I have presented at three symposiums/conferences, most notably at the recent 2023 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference. As an extension of this project, I aim to assess whether a joint blood- and neuroimaging-based biomarker has improved specificity/sensitivity to identify persons with steeper cognitive decline. The second project employs a genome-wide association study to discover novel genetic variants related to visual memory and spatial organization skills to inform future epidemiological studies where visuospatial memory may be compromised in normal aging.