Carver College of Medicine Events
Iowa ReSpectacle Back to School Donation Drive
Sunday, August 30 to Wednesday, September 2, 2026 (all day)
Donate used glasses to be recycled and redistributed across the globe during the back-to-school season! Drop-off locations are available from Aug. 24 to Sept. 25 across the University of Iowa campuses and clinics.
Iowa ReSpectacle Back to School Donation Drive
Monday, August 31 to Wednesday, September 2, 2026 (all day)
Donate used glasses to be recycled and redistributed across the globe during the back-to-school season! Drop-off locations are available from Aug. 24 to Sept. 25 across the University of Iowa campuses and clinics.
Iowa ReSpectacle Back to School Donation Drive
Tuesday, September 1 to Wednesday, September 2, 2026 (all day)
Donate used glasses to be recycled and redistributed across the globe during the back-to-school season! Drop-off locations are available from Aug. 24 to Sept. 25 across the University of Iowa campuses and clinics.
REDCap Basic Training
Tuesday, September 1, 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...
BMB Research Workshop
Tuesday, September 1, 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 Presentation titles are not publicly available due to the use of unpublished research.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: open
Sept. 8: RESERVED
Sept. 15: Steve Guzman, PhD, Postdoc Fellow, Biomedical...
Recent Articles from the University of Iowa
Secreted nuclease effector neutralization by active site mimicry in Bacillota
Monday, August 17, 2026
Polymorphic toxins mediate interbacterial antagonism among competitors in the gut microbiome. Nuclease effectors, distantly related to the type VI-secreted Bacteroidales Tde, are enriched in human gut Bacillota. Tde mediates antagonism among Bacillota, and expression of the cognate immunity, Tdi, in recipients is protective. Crystal structures of Tde/Tdi complexes from two Bacillus spp. and Enterococcus quebecensis highlight a conserved mechanism of immunity. Tdi engages Tde with high-affinity,...
Distinct immunomodulatory effects of synthetic progestins compared with natural progesterone in human immune cells
Monday, August 17, 2026
Progesterone exerts important immunomodulatory functions, yet the immune effects of structurally diverse synthetic progestins remain incompletely defined. Given their variable receptor-binding profiles and links to altered inflammatory outcomes, we examined how commonly used progestins regulate immune signaling in primary human cells. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from healthy female donors were exposed to physiologically relevant concentrations of natural progesterone (P4) and...
MERS-CoV in the Middle East and Africa: from surveillance gaps in humans and dromedary camels to One Health frameworks for spillover, prevention, research and response preparedness
Saturday, August 15, 2026
Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) remains a low-incidence but high-consequence zoonotic coronavirus threat. Since its identification in Saudi Arabia in 2012, more than 2600 laboratory-confirmed cases have been reported from 27 countries, most from the Arabian Peninsula; the reported case fatality ratio is high but probably overestimates infection fatality because mild and asymptomatic infections are under-detected. Dromedary camels across the Middle East, North Africa, East...
Influenza
Thursday, August 6, 2026
Influenza A and B viruses are considerable public health threats. Annual seasonal epidemics are driven by antigenic drift and cause an estimated 3-5 million severe cases and 290,000-650,000 deaths annually. The clinical presentation of seasonal influenza is typically an abrupt, uncomplicated acute respiratory illness with full recovery; however, it can lead to severe, life-threatening complications in individuals at high risk. Antigenic shift caused by reassortment of a seasonal influenza A...
Sex-specific outcomes following chorioamnionitis
Tuesday, July 28, 2026
Chorioamnionitis is a common cause of perinatal inflammation and is associated with adverse neonatal and long-term outcomes. Although male infants experience higher rates and greater severity of many inflammation-related morbidities, the contribution of fetal sex to chorioamnionitis-related outcomes remains understudied. This review synthesizes evidence from human studies and animal models to evaluate how sexually dimorphic placental biology and fetal immune responses shape offspring...
Global, regional, and national burden of road injuries 1990-2023: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2023
Monday, July 20, 2026
BACKGROUND: Road injuries are a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Years of international efforts have aimed to strengthen policy engagement, including the 2020 UN General Assembly's proclamation of the Second Decade of Action for Road Safety (2021-30), targeting a 50% reduction in road traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030. The aim of this study is to provide estimates to monitor progress and identify intervention gaps.
Innate Immune Cell and Epithelial Subsets Coordinate Airway Responses to Allergen
Thursday, July 16, 2026
CONCLUSION: Allergen challenge promotes diverse pro-inflammatory transcriptional responses in the airways, and MCs, basophils, and AECs play distinct but critical roles in coordinating this response. However, airway responses to allergen may vary considerably based on the baseline airway inflammatory endotype.
Gut microbiota and gut-derived metabolites in defining multiple sclerosis phenotypic continuum
Thursday, July 16, 2026
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system in which environmental factors play an important role in shaping disease risk, activity, and progression. Over the past decade, human and experimental studies have consistently shown alterations in the gut microbiome across the phenotypic spectrum of MS and have linked these changes to immune dysregulation, barrier dysfunction, neuroinflammation, and demyelination. Additionally, emerging evidence indicates...
<em>Sleeping Beauty</em> mutagenesis identifies <em>BACH2</em> and other regulators of CD8<sup>+</sup> T-cell exhaustion, persistence in vivo, and CAR-T cell function under tumor-associated chronic antigen stimulation
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
CONCLUSIONS: Controllable SB mutagenesis using DiSBey mice provides a novel platform for functional screening of genes that improve T-cell phenotypes important for their use as therapies. Our findings highlight a dose-dependent role of BACH2 in enhancing the function of engineered T cells under conditions of chronic antigenic stimulation.
Patient-derived model capturing hypoxia and extracellular matrix remodelling of immunologically cold high-grade serous tumours
Saturday, July 11, 2026
High-grade serous carcinoma tumours present poor survival rates, often associated with immunologically excluded environments driven by hypoxia and extensive extracellular matrix remodelling that disrupt tumour-stromal-immune interactions. Current experimental models fail to fully capture these microenvironmental features, limiting understanding of tumour-immune dynamics and drug development. Here, we present bioengineered patient-derived tumour-immune models to mimic physiologically relevant...