Page 7 - Pharmacology Newsletter 2022

Pharmacology MATTERS
Arrivals
We were thrilled to welcome 4 new faculty in 2022!
Dr. Michael Lipscomb joined the faculty in April as Associate Professor of Pharmacology. He built a productive, vis- ible and independent research program studying immunobiology at Howard Uni- versity, with concentrations in immuno- regulation, autoimmunity, immunology of infectious disease, and biomaterials and microcarrier systems. The focus of his lab- oratory at the University of Minnesota is to mechanistically describe the immunoreg- ulatory network(s) that govern the differ- entiation and function of antigen present- ing myeloid cells both under steady-state and disease settings. In addition, the lab employs the use of novel biomaterials in innovative approaches to generate novel organoids for tissue restorative therapies to resolve chronic autoimmune disorders and immunodeficiencies. Dr. Lipscomb recently received news of being award- ed the Maximizing Investigator Research Award (MIRA; R35 mechanism) from the National Institute of General Medical Sci- ences and is actively recruiting graduate students.
Dr. Meghan Driscoll joined the De- partment of Pharmacology as an Assistant Professor in July 2022. She completed her postdoctoral training with Dr. Gaudenz Danuser in the Department of Bioinformat- ics and the Department of Cell Biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Med- ical Center in Dallas, TX. She earned a PhD in Physics with Dr. Wolfgang Losert at the University of Maryland. The Driscoll lab will focus on understanding interrelationships between the spatiotemporal dynamics of intracellular signaling and dynamic 3D cell morphology. Previously, she used high res- olution light-sheet microscopy to discover a novel mode of melanoma cell migration in soft 3D environments. To do so, she developed a suite of computational analy- sis algorithms based on computer graph- ics techniques. In investigating 3D cell dynamics, her lab will combine techniques from many fields.
Dr. Carly Baehr joined the Department of Pharmacology as an Assistant Professor in August 2022. She completed her post- doctoral training with Dr. Marco Pravetoni at the University of Minnesota, where her
research focused on isolation of mono- clonal antibodies (mAb) targeting opi- oids. Currently, the Baehr lab is working to further develop a high-affinity anti-fen- tanyl mAb as a potential therapeutic for fentanyl use disorder. She also has an inter- est in isolation of novel mAbs against other toxic small molecules, which can be used as medical countermeasures or adapted for use in diagnostic or detection assays.
Dr. Fang Li returned to the Department of Pharmacology as Professor and Ed- mund Wallace Tulloch and Anna Marie Tulloch Endowed Chair in August 2022. He received his PhD in Biochemistry from Yale University and postdoctoral training in structural virology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Li joined the University of Min- nesota in 2007 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and was later promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Since 2017, Dr. Li had a 5-year stint in the Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences where he was pro- moted to Professor with tenure and then Endowed Professor. Dr. Li returned to the Department of Pharmacology to lead the Midwest Antiviral Drug Discovery Center and the Minnesota Center for Coronavirus Research. As a world-leading research- er on coronaviruses, Dr. Li has made pi- oneering discoveries on the structural mechanisms of COVID-19 and has also developed novel vaccines and therapeu- tics against COVID-19. According to an influential study published in Elsevier by Stanford University, Dr. Li is among the top 500 most impactful scientists in the world across all disciplines in 2022.
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