Elizabeth Escue successfully defended her M.S. thesis on March 26, 2025, completing the Pathology M.S. program. Her thesis, titled The Ability of Memory CD8 T Cell Subsets to Numerically and Functionally Recover Following Whole-Body Irradiation is Influenced by Their History of Cognate Antigen Exposures, explores the impact of whole-body irradiation (WBI) on memory CD8 T cells with repeated cognate-antigen (cognate-Ag) exposures.

A recent article in The Conversation U.S. highlights cutting-edge research from the Mangalam Lab in the Department of Pathology at the University of Iowa, based on their newly published study in PNAS. The study uncovers a key link between gut microbiota and multiple sclerosis (MS), identifying a specific bacterial ratio that may act as a biomarker for the disease and help predict its severity.

Dr. Cori Fain, a Postdoctoral Scholar in the laboratory of Dr. John Harty in Pathology has been awarded an HHMI Hannah Gray Fellowship. HHMI Hannah Gray Fellows receive up to $1.5 million in support through their postdoctoral training and early faculty careers to pursue challenging scientific problems while developing leadership and mentoring skills to foster inclusivity in science.

Dr. Ashutosh Mangalam, Associate Professor in the department of Pathology, was a featured guest on the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Ask an MS Expert program. In this insightful episode on Gut Health and MS, Dr. Mangalam discussed the intriguing connection between gut health and multiple sclerosis (MS) with host Jon Strum, who also leads the popular RealTalk MS podcast.

Dr. Kevin Legge, Professor of Pathology, has been appointed to the Pathology Professorship in Pulmonary Immunology Research. Dr. Legge received his Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, followed by a Post-Doctoral fellowship at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.

Dr. Bing Li, Professor of Pathology, has been appointed to the Pathology Endowed Chair in Cancer Immunology Research. Dr. Li received his Ph.D. in Immunology from Peking University Health Science Center followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Louisville. Upon completion of his fellowship, he remained at the University of Louisville as a Research Assistant Professor.

Kai Rogers, MD, PhD, a resident/fellow in the Pathology physician-scientist training program specializing in transfusion medicine and immunology, received the Future Leader Transfusion Medicine and Biotherapies Fellow Scholarship Award from the Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies (AABB).

Dr. Kai Rogers, a resident in the Pathology physician-scientist training program (PSTP), has received an NIH/NINDS grant award through its R25/UE5 funding mechanism. The University of Iowa R25/UE5 program, entitled “Carver College of Medicine Clinical Neuroscientist Training Program (CNS-TP)” is led by Drs. George Richerson and Kumar Narayanan in the Department of Neurology. This program acknowledges the critical need for physicians to be involved in basic research on human brain disease and provides direct support toward this goal. It provides funding for residents in any department if their research is in any area aligned with the goals of the NINDS. Its major purpose is to increase the number of physicians performing disease-oriented neuroscience research, and to decrease the time for physician-scientists to obtain independent funding (K Awards, R01s, etc.).

Stephanie van de Wall, Ph.D. was the lead author of the study. Co-authors include Scott Anthony, Lisa Hancox and Lecia Epping from the Harty lab, Vladimir P. Badovinac Ph.D., also from U. Iowa Pathology as well as Ryan Langlois (U. Minnesota) and Dietmar Zehn (Technical University of Munich). The work was supported by grants from the NIH to VPB and JTH.

Nastaran Daneshgar successfully defended her doctoral thesis in early June and graduated from the Experimental Pathology Ph.D. Program. Her thesis, Klotho-Sirt1-CHK2 Pathways in the Regulation of Cardiac Function in Aging and Post-Myocardial Injury, focuses on aging and cardiac function, offering promising insights into potential therapeutic interventions for age-related cardiac diseases. She conducted her thesis work in the laboratories of Dr. Dao-Fu Dai and Dr. Chad Grueter, utilizing a combination of human tissue, mouse models, and human-derived stem cell models.

Dr. Harty received a new five-year grant from the NIH entitled “Mechanisms of compromised CD8 T cell responses to vaccination in malaria experienced hosts.” The award totals $3,442,760, the project started June 24, 2024 and concludes April 30, 2029.