Zigman Lab Members

Jeffrey Zigman, M.D., Ph.D.

Jeff was born in Pennsylvania, lived for a short time in Long Island, NY and then spent the remainder of his childhood in Essex County, NJ.  He received a B.A. degree in Biological Sciences in 1989 from the School of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.  He subsequently moved to Chicago to begin an 8 year-long combined M.D.-Ph.D. Program at the University of Chicago, with funding through the NIH Medical Scientist Training Program.  Dr. Zigman's doctoral research on G-proteins in the pancreatic islets of Langerhans was performed in the laboratory of Donald F. Steiner, M.D., and he obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 1994.  Dr. Zigman's M.D. degree was obtained from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine in 1997.  Dr. Zigman completed an Internal Medicine residency (1997 - 2000) at the University of Chicago Hospitals and a combined research and clinical fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism (2000 - 2003) at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.  During fellowship, Dr. Zigman performed research on ghrelin and the neuroanatomic basis of body weight homeostasis, in the laboratory of Joel K. Elmquist, D.V.M, Ph.D.  He continued to work in Dr. Elmquist's laboratory, following fellowship, as a junior faculty member at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Zigman moved to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in January 2006 as an Instructor in the Department of Internal Medicine.  He is now Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Psychiatry and is currently affiliated with the Division of  Hypothalamic Research, the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism and the Integrative Biology Graduate Program.

Sherri Osborne-Lawrence, M.S. - Senior Research Scientist and Lab Manager

Sherri was born in Texas and has lived here all of her life. She received her B.A. degree in Biology from Austin College in Sherman, TX and an M.S. degree in Molecular & Cell Biology from The University of Texas at Dallas.  She has worked in 5 laboratories at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.  Sherri's initial research projects involved positional cloning of genes involved in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Early Onset Familial Breast Cancer.  After a few years assisting with the final stages of sequencing for the Human Genome Project, she focused on discovering how endothelial cell dysfunction leads to cardiovascular disease, with particular interests in estrogen modulation as well as the effects of C-reactive protein.  In the beginning of July 2006, Sherri joined the Zigman lab as Senior Research Scientist and Lab Manager, and is now expanding her interests to include ghrelin and its effects on metabolic pathways.

Ichiro Sakata, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Ichiro was born in Japan.  He spent the majority of the last decade living in the city of Saitama, where he attended Saitama University as an undergraduate student, a graduate student and a postdoctoral fellow.  Ichiro has been trained under the mentorship of Dr. Takafumi Sakai, and has focused his studies on the regulation of gastric ghrelin expression.  He has several publications with Dr. Sakai and Dr. Kenji Kangawa regarding his work with ghrelin.  Dr. Sakata arrived in the U.S. at the end of February, 2007 to begin his second postdoctoral fellowship, in Dr. Zigman's lab.

Mario Perello, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Mario was born in Pehuajo (Buenos Aires, Argentina). In 1994 he moved to La Plata to attend the School of Exact Sciences at La Plata University. At La Plata, he received undergraduate degrees in Chemistry (1998) and Biochemistry (2000), followed by a Ph.D. in Biochemistry (2003) and an M.S. in Endocrinology (2004).  Mario’s Ph.D. and M.S. theses were performed in the laboratory of Dr. Eduardo Spinedi, and were focused on leptin’s regulation of the adrenal axis (Ph.D. thesis) and on the role of estrogens in the acute response to inflammatory processes (M.S. thesis). In April 2004, Mario moved to Providence, R.I. where he performed post doctoral research on the biosynthesis and post translational processing of neuropeptides in the laboratory of Dr. Eduardo Nillni at Rhode Island Hospital/Brown Medical School. In January 2008, he moved to Dallas and joined the Zigman laboratory to perform a second post doctoral fellowship.

Jen-Chieh Chuang, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Jay was born in Taichung, which is a city located in the middle part of Taiwan.  He attended college in Taipei, where he majored in Zoology.  Following a 2-year stint in the Taiwanese armed forces, Jay came to the U.S. to perform graduate work in the laboratory of Dr. Joyce Repa at UTSW.  His Ph.D. studies focused on islet physiology, and in particular, the role of nuclear receptors in the endocrine pancreas.  Jay successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis in early July 2008.  Dr. Chuang moved across the hall from Dr. Repa's lab to the Zigman lab in late July 2008 to begin his postdoctoral work.  Jay is married to Tzuling, who is currently completing her graduate studies at UTSW.  His hobbies include tropical fish, fishing and badminton.

Paul K. Piper Jr, M.D. - Postdoctoral Research Fellow/Clinical Fellow in Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism

Paul was born in Fayetteville, NC and lived several places growing up (El Paso, TX, Wurzburg, Germany, and Washington DC) prior to moving to the Dallas area.  He received a B.S. degree in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University in 1995 and an MD degree from the UT School of Medicine at San Antonio in 2002.  While a medical student, he received clinical research experience in insulin clamps with Dr. Ralph DeFronzo’s group.  Dr. Piper completed residency training in internal medicine at UT Southwestern (2002-2005) and then went into private practice as a hospitalist on the medical staff of Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas TX.  In 2008 he returned to UT Southwestern for fellowship training in Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolism.  His research interests include diabetes, obesity, and control of energy metabolism.  His hobbies include travel and photography.

Siegfried Meier, B.S. - Research Assistant II

Siegfried was born in Houston, Texas.  He earned his Bachelor’s of Science degree in Psychology from Texas A&M, University.  While at A&M, he worked in a neuroscience research lab.  The lab was interested in the neurobiological basis of memory and the effects of mood on learning.  After graduation, Siegfried decided to take a break from academics to pursue other interests.  In 2008, after holding a variety of different jobs, he went on a three month walk across Europe.  It was then Siegfried decided to get back into the academic world.  He joined Dr. Zigman’s lab in March 2009 as a research assistant.  His hobbies include traveling, hiking, and scuba diving.

Former Lab Members

Sherry Rovinsky - Research Assistant II - key lab member from Spring 2007-May 2009

Jakub Woloszyn - UTSW Medical Student performing Summer Research 2008

Neha Chaudhary - UTSW Medical Student performing Summer Research 2009

Gregory Wallingford, Jr. - Notre Dame Undergraduate performing a Summer Research as part of SURF 2009