Carver College of Medicine Events
Molecular Physiology and Biophysics Seminar, Lluis Ribas de Pouplana
Tuesday, October 27, 2026 9:30am to 10:30am
Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center Virtual Career Development Series - Neuroscience alumna, McCall Sarrett, PhD
Tuesday, October 27, 2026 11:30am
🎓 Neuroscience Alumni Spotlight: McCall Sarrett, PhD ('20)
From Herky to Duo: A Career in the Cognitive Science of Learning
What can a PhD career look like beyond the traditional academic path?
Join the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Career Development Series for a conversation with McCall Sarrett, PhD ('20, Neuroscience), a University of Iowa graduate alumna who has built a career applying cognitive science and research in industry.
McCall is currently a Learning Scientist at Duolingo, where...
BMB Research Workshop
Tuesday, October 27, 2026 12:30pm to 1:20pm
The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology holds research workshops featuring internal speakers on Tuesdays, 12:30-1:20pm. For Fall 2026, these will occur in 1117 MERF. Presentation titles are not publicly available due to the use of unpublished research. Individuals interested in attending workshops or being added to the email list should contact the office at biochem@uiowa.edu.
Aug. 25: CANCELED
Sept. 1: CANCELED
Sept. 8: RESERVED
Sept. 15: Steve Guzman, PhD, Postdoc Fellow, Biomedical...
Recent Articles from the University of Iowa
Conserved nucleocapsid epitopes induce cross-reactive CD4(+) T-cell responses with selective protection against human coronaviruses in mice
Thursday, October 22, 2026
No abstract
The Role of Neutrophil Extracellular Traps (NETosis) in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: Molecular Mechanisms, Pathogenic Roles, Diagnostic Biomarkers, and Emerging Therapeutic Strategies
Friday, October 16, 2026
Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) are web-like structures comprising chromatin scaffolds decorated with cytotoxic granule proteins released during a specialized form of neutrophil cell death termed NETosis. Although NETs function as a critical antimicrobial defense mechanism, their dysregulation contributes significantly to the pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). In SLE patients, both excessive NET formation by proinflammatory low-density granulocytes (LDGs) and impaired NET...
Efficient colonic colonization by <em>Campylobacter jejuni</em> requires the heme receptor ChuA
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Previous research demonstrated that Campylobacter jejuni encodes a heme utilization system that facilitates heme-dependent growth under iron-limiting conditions, and that transcription of this system is induced during human infection. Despite these observations, it remained unknown whether the heme transport system is required for colonization and disease in a susceptible host. To address this, we created individual non-polar deletion mutants of each component of the heme transport system and...
TNFα promotes brain-predominant EAE independent of IFNγ and IL-17A in HLA-DR3 transgenic mice
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is thought to be mediated by human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class II-restricted autoreactive CD4 T cells producing interleukin (IL)-17A and/or interferon γ (IFNγ), but the necessity of these cytokines for disease pathogenesis is unclear. Utilizing HLA-DR3 (DRβ1*0301) transgenic mice lacking IFNγ or IL-17A in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), a model of MS, we found that neither cytokine is essential for disease induction, although both have distinct roles....
Gene regulatory behaviors of mutant CRX proteins demonstrated with late-stage human retinal organoids
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Variants in the transcription factor CRX cause a spectrum of retinal degenerative disorders including Leber congenital amaurosis 7 (LCA7). LCA7-associated variants exert a dominant effect in developing photoreceptor cells, leading to cellular dysfunction and poor to absent visual acuity in patients. Here, we dissect the allelic heterogeneity of LCA7 using multimodal single-cell gene expression and chromatin accessibility analysis of retinal organoids. We generated mature (240 day) retinal...
Hemagglutinin and fusion proteins precede measles virus ribonucleoproteins and marshal cell-to-cell spread in airway epithelium
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Measles virus (MeV) is the most contagious human respiratory pathogen. To understand how it spreads in the airways, we infected well-differentiated primary cultures of human airway epithelial cells (HAE). We discovered that the MeV attachment protein (hemagglutinin, H), the fusion (F) protein, and the assembly organizer protein (matrix, M) reach newly infected cells ahead of, and independently from, the replicative complex proteins. To characterize the mechanisms of MeV spread, we generated a...
HSV-1 induces stable associations between the Golgi and endosomes within the cytoplasmic viral assembly compartment of neuronal cells
Monday, October 12, 2026
Assembly of mature herpesvirus particles is associated with extensive rearrangement of cytoplasmic membranes. Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) infection in neuronal cells induces the formation of a distinctive cytoplasmic viral assembly compartment (cVAC), in which rearranged host membranes and viral proteins are clustered at the perinuclear microtubule-organizing center (MTOC). Although both the trans-Golgi network (TGN) and endosomal compartments have been implicated as membrane sources for...
Monocyte-derived pro-angiogenic ocular macrophages identified by spatial transcriptomics are essential for choroidal neovascularization
Thursday, October 8, 2026
The human retina and underlying choroid have multiple well-organized vascular layers. However, retinal and choroidal neovascularization can develop in diseases such as diabetic retinopathy or neovascular age-related macular degeneration, which can result in destructive vision loss. Ocular macrophages are implicated in the pathogenesis of such neovascular diseases. To identify a potential pro-angiogenic macrophage subtype, we integrated 13 single-cell RNA sequencing datasets from human and mouse...
Bronchiectasis prevalence, incidence, and exacerbation rates among insured adults in the U.S.: a descriptive analysis
Tuesday, October 6, 2026
CONCLUSIONS: Observed prevalence-incidence widening gap suggests case accumulation over time and survival among continuously enrolled beneficiaries. Exacerbation burden was concentrated among individuals with prior exacerbations, chronic airway infection, and respiratory comorbidity, while exacerbation rates decreased over time across payers and subgroups, in part reflecting changes in cohort composition.
Dicer-independent miR-451a is upregulated in periodontitis and potentiates inflammation by impairing macrophage polarization and SOCS activity
Tuesday, October 6, 2026
CONCLUSION: miR-451a is a pathogen-responsive, PD-associated miRNA that promotes pro-inflammatory macrophage polarization, impairs bacterialphagocytosis, and amplifies inflammation through suppression of SOCS-mediated immune regulation. These findings identify the miR-451a-SOCS3/SOCS5 axis as a potential mechanism linking bacterial challenge to dysregulated macrophage responses in PD.