Carver College of Medicine Events
Changing Medicine, Changing Lives: A Celebration of Our People
Wednesday, May 27, 2026 5:30pm
UI Health Care's inaugural awards celebration
Internal Medicine Grand Rounds 5/28/2026
Thursday, May 28, 2026 12:00pm to 1:00pm
CPC: TBA
Jennifer Houser, MD and Hira Shaikh, MBBS
Skills for Educators Workshop: Medical Improv
Friday, May 29, 2026 8:30am to 11:30am
This interactive workshop will explore how improvisational theatre principles can enhance clinical communication skills.
REDCap Basic Training
Tuesday, June 2, 2026 10:00am to 11:30am
This is the first step in the REDCap training series. In this training, we will build a new REDCap project from scratch and cover basic features such as:
• Building forms with proper field types and validation
• Assigning user permissions
• Project backup and overview with data dictionary, codebook, pdf, and xml
• Ensuring your project works properly by testing with real world application
• Making mid-study modifications safely after having started data collection in production
• Creating and...
Neuroscience Interdisciplinary Program Thesis Defense Seminar: Sara Mitchell
Tuesday, June 2, 2026 11:00am
Sara Mitchell is a PhD candidate in the Neuroscience Interdisciplinary Graduate Program. Her research has been conducted in Drs. Hanna Stevens and Rainbo Hultman laboratories.
If you are unable to attend in person, please consider showing your support and attending via Zoom. Please email britt-hokanson@uiowa.edu for the zoom link.
Recent Articles from the University of Iowa
The MICOS Complex Regulates Mitochondrial Structure and Oxidative Stress During Age-Dependent Structural Deficits in the Kidney
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Due to aging, the efficiency of kidney function begins to decrease. Dysfunction in mitochondria and their cristae is a hallmark of aging. Therefore, age-related decline in kidney function could be attributed to changes in mitochondrial ultrastructure, increased reactive oxygen species, and alterations in metabolism and lipid composition. We sought to understand how mitochondrial ultrastructure is altered over time in tubular kidney cells. A serial block face-scanning electron microscope and...
Establishment of pediatric reference ranges for circulating naive and memory T and B cell subsets guided by the human immunophenotyping consortium standardization initiative: A large, single center U.S. experience
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Our knowledge of the immune system continues to expand at a rapid pace, and this coupled with technological advances now enables us to interrogate both the breadth and the depth of the immune response at levels without precedent. This has also facilitated rapidly integrating some of this carefully vetted knowledge into clinical practice. Notable examples of these advances include successfully harnessing the therapeutic potential of the immune system (immunotherapy), as well as an expanding menu...
Circulating natural killer cells are phenotypically and functionally altered in age-related macular degeneration
Friday, May 8, 2026
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible central blindness and can result in pathological neovascularization. Using a "human-first" approach, we identify immunotherapy as a disease modifier in models of neovascular AMD (nAMD). Plasma cytokine analysis in a large population cohort reveals an imbalance of lymphocytic cytokines associated with severity of AMD, leading to discovery of a skewed peripheral natural killer (NK) cell phenotype in individuals with AMD....
Respiratory infections due to human common cold coronaviruses, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2: epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical features, diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccine landscapes
Thursday, May 7, 2026
Over the past half-century, perceptions of human coronaviruses have evolved from their initial characterisation as causes of the common cold to recognition of their capacity to trigger severe disease and global epidemics. The emergence of three zoonotic coronaviruses-severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2002, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in 2012, and SARS-CoV-2 in 2019, has had profound health, economic, and societal consequences and continues to...
Presynaptic Ca<sub>V</sub>2.1 calcium dependent facilitation is essential for faithful auditory information transfer
Monday, May 4, 2026
Activity-dependent modulation of presynaptic voltage-gated Ca^(2+) channels (Ca(V)2) regulates Ca^(2+) influx to control neuronal circuit output. Although Ca(V)2.1 can undergo robust Ca^(2+) dependent facilitation (CDF), whether it occurs in native central nervous system neuronal circuits is disputed. Accurate auditory information processing requires precise and reliable synaptic transmission at high activity rates in the auditory brainstem. To determine if Ca(V)2.1 CDF is a key regulator of...
Current understanding of the NLRC4 Inflammasome in autoinflammation and enterocolitis
Monday, May 4, 2026
The NLRC4 inflammasome is a cytosolic immune sensor that detects bacterial virulence structures and rapidly initiates inflammatory responses. While tightly regulated NLRC4 activation is essential for host defense, genetic mutations that enhance NLRC4 signaling can drive severe autoinflammatory disease. Studies in patients and genetically engineered mouse models have begun to reveal how dysregulated NLRC4 activation disrupts intestinal and systemic immune homeostasis. This review summarizes...
Animal Models of Hunner-Type Interstitial Cystitis
Saturday, May 2, 2026
CONCLUSION: The URO-OVA model develops chronic bladder inflammation, pelvic/bladder pain, and voiding dysfunction seen in human HIC patients. It responds to treatment with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and specific inhibitors, such as Toll-like receptor (TLR)4, mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase, and interferon (IFN)-γ inhibitors. The URO-OVA model is stable and reproducible, providing a unique EAC model for HIC research that incorporates immune/autoimmune components in its pathophysiology.
Coinfection ecology and pathogen emergence in a <em>Borrelia</em>-endemic landscape: 5 years of <em>Borrelia burgdorferi</em>, <em>Anaplasma phagocytophilum</em>, and <em>Babesia microti</em> surveillance in Maryland
Monday, April 20, 2026
The emergence of tick-borne pathogens depends on ecological opportunity and barriers to persistence within vectors and hosts. Borrelia burgdorferi is well established in the mid-Atlantic, whereas Babesia microti and Anaplasma phagocytophilum remain patchily distributed. Five years of integrated surveillance (2020-2024) at three Maryland sites allowed us to track B. microti and A. phagocytophilum establishment by screening questing Ixodes scapularis nymphs, Peromyscus leucopus-fed nymphs, and P....
Global burden of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, 1990-2023, and projections to 2050: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2023
Thursday, April 16, 2026
BACKGROUND: Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), previously known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, is one of the most prevalent liver diseases globally, contributing to both economic and health-related challenges. We aimed to evaluate the global, regional, and national burden of MASLD from 1990 to 2023, quantify the contribution of identified modifiable risk factors, and project future prevalence up to the year 2050.
Typhoid Toxin of Salmonella enterica Induces ISG15 Responses Mediating Host Cell Survival and Counteracting Intracellular Infection
Monday, April 13, 2026
The typhoid toxin is a secreted virulence factor of typhoidal serovars of the bacterial pathogen Salmonella enterica implicated in typhoid fever and chronic infections. The toxin causes a DNA damage response in human cells, characterised by cell-cycle arrest and cellular distension, resulting in cellular senescence and increased bacterial burden. To better understand host responses to typhoid toxin, we performed a transcriptomic analysis of intoxicated host cells and found that the toxin induced...