June 2026
A big congratulations to Tracy Her for receiving her F31 grant titled "Cellular mechanisms of placenta stress driven inflammation in maternal hyperinsulinemia."
May 2026
Congratulations to Sara Puccini who won the Cardiovascular Trainee Showcase Oral Presentation Competition at the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) annual meeting.
Great news! Brian Alkhaphong secured three year funding of NIH F31 on his work on the impact of insulin on mammary gland development and inflammatory microenvironment. This grant is co-sponsored by Emilyn Alejandro and Kaylee Schwertfeger.
The 2026 commencement ceremony was held on May 11 for the graduate programs in the Medical School and CBS. Congratulations to our 2026 graduates! Gavin Fredrickson, Rawan Almutlaq, Kate Fallon, Jenna Mendelson and Sara Puccini.
April 2026
Medical School Award Recipients were honored on April 29 at the Bell Museum. IBP had many award honorees! Jenny Mikkila received the Dr. Marvin and Hadassah Bacaner Research Award in Cardiology, Tracy Her was selected to receive the Steer Johnson Award. Rawan Almutlaq was the recipient of the J. Jacob Kaplan Award and Dr. Marvin and Hadassah Bacaner Research Award in Physiology and finally, Jenna Mendelson received the J. Jacob Kaplan Award, The Beatrice Milne & Theodore Brandenburg award, and the Steer-Pruitt Award Amazing accomplishments! Here is a list of all the Medical school awardees.
October 2025
IBP graduate students enjoy a fun Halloween social outing!
September 2025
Thank you Jenna, Rawan and Audrey for organizing a meaningful visit for our Distinguished Lecturer, Annet Kirabo!
Congratulations to Audrey Daugherty who received the Hemingway award for 2025!
August 2025
We finally got back to Itasca!
June 2025
On June 3 we celebrated all of our recent students who successfully passed their final exams. JP on April 30, Arthur de la Cruz-Lynch, May 6 and Houda Cohen on May 9. We got a picture of the whole 2019 cohort at the event!
May 2025
Jenna Mendelson received first place at the Visscher Young Investigator Competition on May 29, 2025. The winning talked was titled: Glycoprotein 130 Antagonism Counteracts Metabolic and Inflammatory Alterations to Enhance Right Ventricle Function in Pulmonary Artery Banded Pigs.” Great job Jenna!
Congratulations to Babatunde Anidu on receiving the 2025 Student Scholarship in Cardiovascular Disease from the American Heart Association!
Great work Houda! Houda Cohen successfully defended her thesis on May 9, 2025! Title: Investigation of membrane stabilizing copolymers as early therapy for muscular dystrophy. Houda will continue in the Metzger lab as a Postdocal Fellow.
Congratulations to Arthur de la Cruz-Lynch who successfully defended his thesis on May 6, 2025. Title: Catheter-Based Afferent Renal Denervation: Evaluation as a Treatment for Hypertension. Arthur is continuing with the MSTP program and is currently doing his clinical rotations.
April 2025
JP Pallais successfully defended his thesis "An essential role for microglial Complement 3a Receptor (C3aR) on high-fat diet induced hypothalamic neuroinflammation" on April 30, 2025. Way to go, JP!
Congrats to Babatunde Anidu from the Evans lab! Babatunde was a finalist a finalist in the APS Physiology summit in the Water & Electrolyte Section’s Data Diuresis competition.
March 2025
Medical School Awards
Congratulations to the awardees from IBP! Preethy Parthiban and Jenna Mendelson are both recipients of the Dr. Marvin and Hadassah Bacaner Research Award, Tracy Her was selected to receive the Steer Family Award in Diabetes Research. Natalie Weir received the Lifson/Johnson Memorial Award and Fanta Barrow received the J. Jacob Kaplan Award and the Jan Lunden Award! Great accomplishments!
January 2025
Congratulations Babatunde Anidu for receiving third place in the American Physiology Society (APS) essay contest! Here is Babatunde's essay in Physiology: Is Your Love for Salt Putting Your Health at Risk?
Congratulations to our first PhD in 2025, Fanta Barrow, for her successful thesis defense on January 24, 2025.
2024
Nov 2024
Congratulations to Jenna Mendelson who received the Cournand & Comroe Early Career Investigator Award! This AHA award acknowledges the research and accomplishments of early career investigator members of the council and encourages them to continue their research in biomedical sciences.
Oct 2024
Congratulations to Dr. Seokwon Jo who successfully defended his thesis on Oct 28, 2024!
Sept 2024
At the Fall Welcome Event, we welcomed our new students and announced the recipient of the Hemingway Scholarship. Congrats to Verónica Torres!
This year's Zofia Zukowska lectureship was another great success thanks to all the efforts of Sara Puccini and Rawan Altmutlaq!
July 2024
Fanta Barrow won the Graduate Student award for the 2024 Cardio Palooza in July!
May 2024
At a ceremony for the Medical School Awards recognition at the Bell Museum, Seokwon Jo was honored as the recipient of of the Bacaner and the Brandenburg award. Another Medical School award winner is Eunice Oribamise who received the Lifson Johnson Teaching award. Congratulations to both of you!
Preethy Parthiban received first place in the 2024 Visscher Young Investigator competition on May 21, 2024. Her talk was titled “Macrophage-derived CCL24 promotes fibrosis and worsens cardiac dysfunction during heart failure.”
April 2024
Houda Cohen presented her work at Keystone this week. She was selected for an invited talk: "Chronic Cardiac Wasting-Associated Cardiomyopathy in Post-Tumor-Mediated Cancer Cachexia". The word that her talk generated a lot of excitement!
Congratulations to Houda Cohen for receiving a 2024-25 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF). A great honor!
March 2024
Ingrid Rodriguez Aragon recently attended the New England Science Symposium, hosted by the Harvard Medical School Office for Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Partnership, and she was awarded the Dana Farber / Harvard Cancer Center best poster award. Awesome!
February 2024
Congratulations to Tracy Her from the Alejandro lab. Tracy has a first author paper that has been published! The title is "Circadian disruption across lifespan impairs glucose homeostasis and insulin sensitivity in offspring" This study sheds light on how night shift work can impact gestational diabetes risk and metabolic health in children. link to view Tracy's paper.
2023
September 2023
Thank you JP and Jenna for their leadership in planning the 2023 Zofia Zukowska Lectureship. What a great visit with Dr. Jen Davis!
Exciting month for the IBP Graduate Program! Congratulations to Pedro Rodriguez and Jae-Hwi Sung who both successfully defended their thesis this month. Pedro is the recipient of the Minnesota Obesity Prevenstion (MnOPT) Fellowship and will be working as a Post Doc in the Bartolomucci lab. Jae-Hwi is a Study Director at MD Biosciences.
July 2023
Fanta Barrow was the Graduate Student winner at this year's Cardio Palooza poster session. Congrats Fanta!
And the people choose....Eunice and JP! At the 2023 Cardio Palooza poster event, JP and Eunice tied for the Peoples' Choice award winners.
June 2023
Way to go JP Pallais and Postdoc, Megan Beetch for winning the top abstracts at the UMN Diabetes Research Day
May 2023
- The 2023 Medical School Award Recipients from IBP. Naixin Zhang received the Bacaner Research award and Gavin Fredrickson is the recipience of the Lifson Johnson Award. Congratulations Naixin and Gavin! The full awards program.
Naixin Zhang particapted in the UMN commencement on May 15. We wish her the best in her new position at Tectonic Therapeutic in Boston.
2022
Welcome 2022 Fall Cohort
July 2022
- Congratulations to Jenna Mendelson and Gavin Fredrickson who were both poster session winners at the 2022 Cardio Palooza on July 31
May 2022
- Recent graduate, Alexie Larson started working at Thermo Fisher Scientific within their imaging and detection team.
- Congratulations to our Medical School award recipients!
- Fanta Barrow (Revelo lab) is the 2022 IBP Milne and Brandenburg Award recipient. This award recognizes exceptional thesis research in biomedical sciences. Fanta is also the awardee of the Jan Lunden Award. This award honors outstanding research by a graduate or medical student in the field of molecular hepatology.
- Ingrid Rodriguez Aragon (Batchelor lab) is the 2021-2022 recipient of the Lifson-Johnson award for excellence in teaching.
- Brandon Wagner received the Dr. Marvin and Hadassah Bacaner Research in IBP Award which recognizes exceptional research achievement by graduate students.
Seokwon Jo (Alejandro lab) is the recipient of the Veneziale-Steer Award. This award recognizes outstanding research by a graduate or medical student in the field of cellular growth regulation.
February 2022
Ph.D. Candidate, Seokwon Jo, received notice that his submitted NIH NIDDK grant application was approved for funding. Great news, Seokwon!
2021
December 2021
Congratulations to Alexie Larson on a successful Ph.D. thesis defense! "Satellite cell maintenance and the strength recovery after injury: the impact of estradiol signaling"
November 2021
Fanta Barrow won a Early Career Investigator Award through the AASLD foundation. Congratulations! check out the details on Twitter.
Fall 2021
Welcome New IBP Graduate Students!
October 2021
- Congratulations Iffy Akinnola on passing your final thesis defense! Iffy is completing his M.D. through the University of Minnesota’s Medical Scientist Training Program (MD/PHD).
March 2021
- Congratulations to Carolina Ortiz Cordero who is the recipient of the The Beatrice Z. Milne and Theodore Brandenburg Award which recognizes exceptional thesis research by graduate students in the basic biomedical sciences. The Biomedical Sciences Ph.D. Graduate Programs Council in the Medical School coordinates the selection process.
Carolina is also the winner of the The Dr. Marvin and Hadassah Bacaner Research Award. The Dr. Marvin and Hadassah Bacaner Research Awards program encourages intellectual achievement by graduate students and is underwritten by a gift to the Foundation in memory of Jacob and Minnie Bacaner. Selection is done by departments.
February 2021
Way to go, Carolina! Another publication, this one in in eLife. Here is the link for her paper, "NAD+ enhances ribitol and ribose rescue of α-dystroglycan functional glycosylation in human FKRP-mutant myotubes"
2020
December, 2020
Congratulations to Forum Kamdar on her successful thesis defense entitled: "Modeling Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Cardiomyopathy using Patient Specific Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Derived-Cardiomyocytes "
December, 2020
Great Job, Carolina! Carolina Ortiz Cordero recently published a review in Trends in Cell Biology. Here is the link to the publication.
November, 2020
Congratulations to Seokwon Jo! His manuscript entitled, Translational Factor eIF4G1 Regulates Glucose Homeostasis and Pancreatic β-Cell Function, is accepted in Diabetes. View the publication here.
September, 2020
The University of Minnesota MSTP has announced the 2020 – 2021 Leadership in Diversity Fellowship recipients. This new fellowship program recognizes MSTP students who have demonstrated an exceptional commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion through leadership in initiatives that foster the program’s commitment to creating a diverse, inclusive, equitable and just climate. Congratulations to Iffy Akinnola, who is one of the recipients of this Fellowship. For the listing of all recipients.
September, 2020
Jae Hwi Sung received the Lifson/Johnson memorial award which recognizes excellence in teaching by a graduate student. Jae Hwi was a Teaching Assistant for undergraduate physiology students Fall 2019. Kudos to Jae!
Congratulations to Seokwon Jo who received the Allan Hemingway Scholarship. This award is giving to the graduate student with the highest cumulative GPA upon completion of their first year of coursework.
Fall 2020
Please welcome the IBP Graduate Student Cohort
June, 2020
Amber Lockridge successfully defended her thesis on June 5, 2020. Amazing work Amber! "When to secrete and when to rest? Protein O-GlcNAcylation in beta cell functional responses to hyperlipidemia."
September 2020, Amber will begin her post doctoral training in the lab of John Allan Hanover, Ph.D., NIH.
April 2020
Congratulations to Amber Lockridge who is the 2020 recipient of the Dr. Marvin and Hadassah Bacaner Research Award.
Amber's manuscript titled "Islet O-GlcNAcylation is Required for Lipid Potentiation of Insulin Secretion through SERCA2" has been accepted to be published in Cell Reports. Great news! Read paper here.
March 2020
Congratulations to Dan Baumann and other collaborators from Dr. Alejandro lab on their recent publication titled "Role of nutrient-driven O-GlcNAc-posttranslational modification in pancreatic exocrine and endocrine islet development" in Development.
Mayank Verma, M.D., Ph.D. is doing his residency at the University of Texas - Southwestern in Child Neurology and Neuroscience.
Matthew Wheelwright, M.D., Ph.D., is a resident at the University of Minnesota Department of Surgery.
Amritha Yellamilli, M.D., Ph.D., is continuing her training at Standford's Pediatric Residency Program in the Physician-Scientist Track.
2019
October 2019
Congratulations Kadambari on the successful passing of her final thesis defense! Thesis title: "Poloxamer 188 in pre-clinical models of acute myocardial infarction- old problem, new perspectives”
September 2019
Jae Hwi Sung is the recipient of the Alan Hemingway Scholarship. Jae had the highest GPA in his first year of coursework.
July 2019
Tanya Meyers successfully passed her final thesis defense! Thesis title: "Preclinical Models of Dystrophic Cardiomyopathy and Therapies for the Dystrophic Heart”. Tanya will begin her post doctoral training at Nationwide Children's hospital.