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Physiology Seminar Series

The Department of Physiology offers many opportunities for fellows and graduate students to expand their knowledge and training, including a monthly seminar series conducted by faculty and researchers from UT Southwestern and elsewhere.

Postdoctoral fellows and graduate students are expected to attend these Physiology Department-sponsored seminars to ensure broad training within the Department’s academic training programs.

Seminars are held in ND13.218 at 4 p.m on Mondays.

  • Fall 2025
    DateSpeakerTitleHost
    Sept. 22 Denise Marciano, Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Nephrology, UTSW Medical Center    		 “Role of Claudin-10 in Kidney Function and Cellular Architecture” Orson Moe, Ph.D.
    Sept. 29 Xiaochun Li, Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics, UTSW Medical Center    		 “Regulations of Intracellular Phospholipid and Cholesterol Metabolism by Phosphatidylserine Synthases” Yi Liu Ph.D.
    Oct. 6 David Ornitz, M.D., Ph.D.
    Alumni Endowed Professor, Department of Developmental Biology, Washington University School of Medicine    		 “FGF Signaling in Growing and Adult Bone” Orson Moe, Ph.D.
    Oct. 13 Orkun Akin, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor, Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA    		 TBD Daisuke Hattori, Ph.D.
    Oct. 20 Yang Xie, Ph.D.
    Professor, O'Donnell-SPH-Data Sciences in Precision, UTSW Medical Center    		 TBD Jiang Wu, Ph.D.
    Oct. 27 Sarah Huen, M.D., Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology, UTSW Medical Center    		 “Metabolism as a Defense Mechanism: Surviving Sepsis and Starvation” Orson Moe, Ph.D.
    Nov. 3 Huilin Li, Ph.D.
    Professor and Chair, Ralph and Grace Hauenstein Endowed Chair in Structural Biology, Department of Structural Biology, Van Andel Institute    		 “The Leading Strand DNA Polymerase Epsilon - What’s so Special about it?” George DeMartino, Ph.D.
    Co-Host: Kevin Mark, Ph.D.
    Nov. 10 Phyllis I. Hanson, M.D., Ph.D.
    Professor and Chair, Department of Biological Chemistry, University of Michigan    		 “Stress, Rupture and Repair: Cellular Responses to Endolysosomal Damage” Jen Liou, Ph.D.
    Nov. 17 Yan. Jessie Zhang, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of Texas at Austin    		 “The Power of Repetition: Structural and Functional Insights into the Grammar of the RNA Pol II CTD” Anju Sreelatha Ph.D.
    Nov. 24 Seth Tomchik, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology, University of Iowa, Carver College of Medicine    		 “Mechanisms of Metabolic and Behavioral Dysfunction in Neurofibromatosis Type 1” Daisuke Hattori, Ph.D.
    Dec. 1 Chuo Chen, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Biochemistry, UTSW Medical Center    		 “Role of Tankyrase Scaffolding in WNT Signaling and Cancer” Duojia Pan, Ph.D.
    Dec. 8 Benjamin Ohlstein, M.D., Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Childrens Research Institute, UTSW Medical Center    		 TBD Duojia Pan, Ph.D.
    Dec. 15 John Hanna, Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School    		 "Chaperone-Mediated Assembly of the Proteasome Core Particle" George DeMartino, Ph.D.
  • Spring 2025
    DateSpeakerTitleHost
    Jan. 20 MLK Day - No Seminar    
    Jan. 27 Craig Montell, Ph.D.
    Duggan Professor of MCDB Distinguished Professor, Department of Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara    		 "Controlling the Most Dangerous Animal in the World" Duojia Pan Ph.D.
    Feb. 10 Tsai Ming-Feng
    Associate Professor, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics, University of Virginia    		 "Molecular Mechanisms of the Mitochondrial Calcium Transport System" Donald Hilgemann, Ph.D.
    Feb. 17 President's Day - No Seminar    
    Feb. 24 Yulong Li, Ph.D.
    School of Life Sciences, Peking University, China    		 "Spying on Neuromodulator Dynamics In Vivo by Constructing Multi-Color GeneticallyEncoded Sensors" Duojia Pan; Ph.D.
    Mar. 3 Sergi Regot, Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Molecular Biology and Genetics Department Johns Hopkins University    		 "New Approaches to Biochemically Characterize Live Single Cells" Duojia Pan; Ph.D.
    Mar. 10 Yifan Cheng, Ph.D.
    Professor, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California San Francisco    		 "Integrin αvβ8 mediated L-TGF-β activation" Youxing Jiang, Ph.D.
    Mar. 17 Helmut Kramer, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Neuroscience, UTSW    		 "Neuronal Stress Responses in Long-Term Adaptation of Sensory Systems" Jen Liou, Ph.D.
    Mar. 24 Denise J Montell, Ph.D.
    Duggan Professor and Distinguished Professor of Molecular, Department of Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara    		 "RaceCAR-M: from Drosophila Cell Migration to an Enhanced Cellular Immunotherapy" Duojia Pan, Ph.D.
    Mar. 31 Philipp Scherer, Ph.D.
    Professor, IM-Touchstone Diab Ctr, Department of Internal medicine, UTSW    		 "Obesity-Driven Metabolic Dysfunction: Adipose Tissue as a Rich Source for Target Discovery" Donald Hilgemann, Ph.D
    Apr. 7 Weizhe Hong, Ph.D.
    Professor, Departments of Biological Chemistry, Neurobiology, and Bioengineering, University of California, Los Angeles    		 "Neural Basis of Prosocial Behavior" Daisuke Hattori, Ph.D.
    Apr. 21 Fangyu Liu, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology, UTSW    		 "Structural-Docking Synergy for Ligand Discovery" Youxing Jiang, Ph.D.
    Apr. 28 Michael Koval, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Cell Biology, Emory University School of Medicine    		  "Molecular Regulation of Tight Junction Assembly and Permeability" Alec Zhang, Ph.D.
    May 5 Daniel Dombeck, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Neurobiology, Northwestern University    		 "Hippocampal spatial representations in complex environments" Daisuke Hattori, Ph.D.
    May 19 Yuan Zhu, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Pediatrics, UTSW    		 "Parallel Preclinical and Clinical Studies for Tumors in the Nervous System" Jiang Wu, Ph.D.
  • Fall 2024
    DateSpeakerTitleHost
    Sept. 2 Labor Day - No Seminar    
    Sept. 9 Julie Pfeiffer, Ph.D.
    Professor and Chair, Department of Microbiology, UTSW    		 "How Bacteria and Circadian Rhythms Influence Enteric Virus Infection" Yi Liu Ph.D.
    Sept. 16 Yingxi Lin, Ph.D.
    Professor & Division Chief, Department of Psychiatry | Neuroscience
    Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, UTSW    		 "Cellular Memories in Active Neuronal Ensembles" Jiang Wu, Ph.D.
    Sept. 23 Jian Zhou, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor, Department of Bioinformatics, UTSW    		 "Sequence Basis of Transcription Initiation in the Human Genome" Duojia Pan, Ph.D.
    Sept. 30 Kim Orth, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Molecular Biology, UTSW    		 "Fic Domains & AMPylation from Vibrio to Flies, Mice and Humans" Anju Sreelatha, Ph.D.
    Oct. 7 Hongying Shen Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular Physiology, Yale University    		 "The Guardians of Mitochondrial Metabolism: Solute Carrier SLC25 Family Transporters" Xing Zeng, Ph.D.
    Oct. 14 Marc Freeman, Ph.D.
    Director and Senior Scientist, Vollum Institute, Oregon Health & Science University    		 "Astrocyte Control of Neural Circuits and Behavior" Daisuke Hattori, Ph.D.
    Oct. 21 Erika Bach Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, NYU Grossman School of Medicine    		 "Selfish Genetic Elements and Spermatogonial Stem Cell Competition" Duojia Pan, Ph.D.
    Oct. 28 Alex Toker, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School    		 "Identifying Targetable Vulnerabilities in the PI3K/AKT Pathway in Cancer" Anju Sreelatha Ph.D.
    Nov. 4 Roberto J. Botelho, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biology, Ryerson University, Canada    		 "Loss of PIKfyve: there goes the Neighbourhood!" Jen Liou, Ph.D.
    Nov. 11 TBD    
    Nov. 18 Maya Shelly Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Stony Brook University    		 "Directed Mechanisms for Apical Dendrite Development in Principal Pyramidal Neurons in the Embryonic Brain" Jen Liou, Ph.D.
    Nov. 25 John Hanna Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School    		 "Chaperone-Mediated Assembly of the Proteasome Core Particle" George DeMartino, Ph.D.
    Dec. 2 No Seminar    
    Dec. 9 Jeroen Roelofs, Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Kansas Medical Center.    		 "Mechanisms of Proteasome Assembly and Condensate Formation" George DeMartino Ph.D.
  • Fall 2023
    DateSpeakerTitleHost
    Sept. 4 Labor Day – No Seminar    
    Sept. 11 Xiaowei Chen, Ph.D.
    Investigator, Peking University    		 "Receptor-Mediated Lipid Delivery in Metabolic Homeostasis and Viral Defense" Xing Zeng Ph.D.
    Sept. 18 Robert Bachoo, M.D., Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Neurology, and Internal Medicine, UTSW Medical Center    		 "Recurrent Glioblastoma: A Problem Rooted in the Elusive Residual Dormant Cell" Donald Hilgemann, Ph.D.
    Sept. 25 Xiaochen Bai, Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Department of Biophysics and Cell Biology, UTSW Medical Center    		 "Cryo-EM studies of insulin receptor: from mechanisms to therapeutics" Youxing Jiang, Ph.D.
    Oct. 2 Keisa Mathis, Ph.D.
    Departments of Internal Medicine and Physiology, UTSW Medical Center    		 "Neuroimmune control of renal inflammation in hypertension and lupus"  
    Oct. 9 Michael Reese, Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Pharmacology and Biochemistry, UTSW Medical Center    		 "Gaining a biophysical understanding of the apicomplexan invasion machinery" Matt Sieber, Ph.D.
    Oct. 16 John Schoggins, Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology, UTSW Medical Center    		 "Genetically encoded antiviral mechanisms" Yi Liu, Ph.D.
    Oct. 23 David Bilder, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Molecular & Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley    		 "Cold-blooded Cancer: tumor-host interactions in the Drosophila model" Matt Sieber, Ph.D.
    Oct. 30 Xiaolei Su, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor, Department of Cell Biology, Yale School of Medicine    		   Alec Zhang, Ph.D.
    Nov. 6 Reto Fiolka, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor, Department of Cell Biology, UTSW Medical Center    		 "Advanced light microscopy techniques" Ilya Bezprozvanny, Ph.D.
    Nov. 13 Ashley Solmonson, Ph.D.
    Assistant Instructor, Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern    		 "Developmental Metabolism: Why it matters and what it can teach us" Matt Sieber, Ph.D.
    Nov. 20 TBT – NO SEMINAR    
    Nov. 27 Ken Hsu
    Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Texas at Austin    		   Jen Liou, Ph.D.
    Dec. 4 Iok In Christine Choi, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor of Genetics and Development, Columbia University    		 "Malignant consequences of redox signaling" Anju Sreelatha, Ph.D.
    Dec. 11 Sarah Shahmoradian, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor, Center for Alzheimer's and Neurodegenerative Diseases | Biophysics | Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, UTSW Medical Center    		   Jen Liou, Ph.D.
    Dec. 18 Orson Moe, M.D.
    Professor and Director, Departments of Charles and Jane Pak Center for Mineral Metabolism and Clinical Research | Internal Medicine | Physiology, UTSW Medical Center    		 TBT  
  • Fall 2022
    DateSpeakerTitleHost
    Sept. 12 Yang Hong, Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Department of Cell Biology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine    		 "Electrostatic Membrane Targeting and Hypoxia in Cell Polarity" Duojia Pan, Ph.D.
    Sept. 19 Donald Hilgemann, Ph.D.
    Department of Physiology, UT Southwestern Medical Center    		 "Surprising Mechanisms of Plasma Membrane Remodeling"   
    Sept. 28 Erik Jorgensen, Ph.D.
    Distinguished Professor & HHMI Investigator, Department of Biology, University of Utah    		 "Synaptic Transmission in Time and Space" Duojia Pan, Ph.D.
    Oct. 3 Jin Zhang, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Pharmacology, University of California San Diego    		 "Illuminating the Biochemical Activity Architecture of the Cell" Anju Sreelatha, Ph.D.
    Oct. 10 Hui Zong, Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, University of Virginia    		 "Cell Competition and Cooperation In Brain Tumors: The Implications For Effective Therapy" Jiang Wu, Ph.D.
    Oct. 17 Katherine Wert, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, UT Southwestern Medical Center    		 "Metabolic Perturbations During Retinal Degenerative Disease" Jen Liou, Ph.D. 
    Oct. 24 Baron Chanda
    Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, Washington University School of Medicine In St. Louis    		 "Probing Allostery In Pacemaker Ion Channels At A Single Molecule Resolution" Youxing Jiang, Ph.D.
    Oct. 31 Ming Guo, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Neurology and Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, University of California Los Angeles    		 TBD Duojia Pan, Ph.D.
    Nov. 7 Ege Kavalali, Ph.D.
    Professor and Chair, Department of Pharmacology, Vanderbilt University    		 "Functional Nano-Organization Of Central Synapses" Ilya Bezprozvanny, Ph.D.
    Nov. 14 Ming Zhou, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Baylor College of Medicine    		 "Mechanisms of Fe2+ Transport In Ferroportin And Fe3+ Reduction In Stearoyl-CoA Desaturase-1" Youxing Jiang, Ph.D.
    Nov. 21 Kenta Asahina, Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Department of Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies    		 "Neuropeptidergic control of “hanger” in the fruit flies" Daisuke Hattori, Ph.D.
    Nov. 28 Alec Zhang, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Physiology, UT Southwestern Medical Center    		 "ITIM-Receptors: New Wave of Immune Checkpoint Targets for Cancer Treatment"  
    Dec. 5 Matthew Sieber, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology, and UT Southwestern Medical Center    		 TBD  
  • Spring 2021
    DateSpeaker, Title, SchoolTalk TitleHost
    Feb. 8 Ilya Levental, Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Molecular Physiology & Biological Physics, University of Virginia School of Medicine    		 “The Composition, Organization and Function of Mammalian Plasma Membranes” Ilya Bezprozvanny, Ph.D.
    Feb. 22 Gregorz Kudla, Ph.D.
    Group Leader, MRC Human Genetics Unit, University of Edinburgh    		 “Synonymous but not the same: the role of coding sequence mutations in gene regulation” Yi Liu, Ph.D.
    Mar. 1 Mark T. Nelson, Ph.D.
    University Distinguished Prof & Chair, Department of Pharmacology, University of Vermont    		 “Translating thought into blood flow in the brain:  Capillaries as sensors of neural activity” Donald Hilgemann, Ph.D.
    Mar. 15 Mark Wu, M.D., Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University    		  “Circadian Regulation of Sleep and Arousal in Flies and Mice”  Daisuke Hattori, Ph.D.
    Mar. 22 Gerald Shadel, Ph.D.
    Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology Lab, Audrey Geisel Chair, Biomedical Science, Director, San Diego-Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in Basic Biology of Aging    		 “Mitochondrial Stress Signaling in Disease, Aging and Immunity” Anju Sreelatha, Ph.D.
    Apr. 5 Konstantin Doubrovinski, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor, Green Center for System Biology, UT Southwestern Medical Center    		 “Physical Aspects of Drosophila Gastrulation” Duojia Pan, Ph.D.
    Apr. 12 Rui Chang, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor, Dept of Cellular & Molecular Physiology, Yale University    		  “The Molecular and functional architecture of the vagal interoceptive system”  Xing Zeng, Ph.D.
    Apr. 26 Hao Zhu, M.D.
    Associate Professor, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, and Physiology, Children's Research Institute, UT Southwestern Medical Center    		 “Mechanisms of Tissue Regeneration and Implications for Cancer” Jiang Wu, Ph.D.
    May 3 Jian Xu, Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Children's Research Institute, Pediatrics, UT Southwestern Medical Center    		  “Decoding the Pathogenic Non-Coding Genome”  Yi Liu, Ph.D.
    May 10 Takashi Kitamura, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, UT Southwestern Medical Center    		 "Neural circuit mechanism for learning and memory for understanding others and myself" Daisuke Hattori, Ph.D.
    May 24 Nan Yan, Ph.D.
    Associate Professor, Immunology, UT Southwestern Medical Center    		 "STING trafficking and signaling in health and disease" Alec Zhang, Ph.D.
    May 31 Memorial Day    
  • Fall 2020
    DateSpeakerTitleHost
    Sept. 7 Labor Day – No Seminar    
    Sept. 14 Mike Henne, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor, Department of Cell Biology, UT Southwestern Medical Center    		 “Compartmentalization of metabolism at inter-organelle contacts: lessons from yeast” Jen Liou, Ph.D.
    Sept. 21 Justin Kline, M.D.
    Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Section of Hematology/Oncology, University of Chicago Medicine    		 “Immunotherapeutic strategies to overcome CD8+ T cell tolerance in leukemia” Alec Zhang, Ph.D.
    Sept. 28 Open    
    Oct. 5 Jonathan Lederer, M.D., Ph.D.
    Director of Center for Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Professor of Physiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine    		 “ATP Production in Heart by Mitochondria” Donald Hilgemann, Ph.D.
    Oct. 14 Bashour Lecture
    Carol Vivien Robinson, DBE, FRS, FMedSci
    Professor, Department of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Oxford    		 “From peripheral proteins to membrane motors – mass spectrometry comes of age” Duojia Pan, Ph.D. and Donald Hilgemann, Ph.D.
    Oct. 19 Open    
    Oct. 26 Michael S. Marks, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, and Physiology, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and University of Pennsylvania    		 “The dark side of organelle biogenesis enlightened by rare human disease” Jen Liou, Ph.D.
    Nov. 2 Open    
    Nov. 9 Vadim Gladyshev, Ph.D.
    Professor of Medicine, Harvard University    		 "Quantifying and manipulating the aging process" Anju Sreelatha, Ph.D.
    Nov. 16 Richard Lu, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center    		 "Decoding Brain Tumorigenesis and Heterogeneity with Single-Cell Omics" Jiang Wu, Ph.D.
    Nov. 23 Edward Chouchani, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor, Department of Cell Biology and Cancer Biology, Harvard University    		 "Mechanisms of metabolite regulation over health and disease" Anju Sreelatha, Ph.D.
    Nov. 30 Ezra Burstein, M.D., Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center    		 “Recycling in the endosomal compartment: Understanding the roles of the CCC complex” Jen Liou, Ph.D.
    Dec. 7 Eduardo Perozo, Ph.D.
    Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, University of Chicago    		 "Structural basis of Force-form-Lipid Gating in Mechanosensitive Channels" Paul Blount, Ph.D.
    Dec. 14 Wolfgang Baumeister, Ph.D.
    Director, Molecular Structural Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry    		 "Structural Biology in situ or the Power of Seeing the Whole Picture" George DeMartino, Ph.D.
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