Connor Wilhelm, Experimental Pathology PhD candidate in Alex Boyden’s lab, has received a travel grant from the National MS Society to attend this year’s Autumn Immunology Conference (AIC) in Chicago, where he will present a poster and short talk.

On Friday, October 17, we celebrated our Medical Laboratory Science students who received the David and Pamela Buhr Medical Laboratory Sciences Excellence Fund. Hanna Gee and Lexi McIntyre are fourth year students in the program who will begin clinicals next semester. Hanna will be completing her clinicals here in Iowa City and Lexi will be finishing her final year and clinicals through our partnership with Mercy College of Health Sciences.

Payton Kahl successfully defended her M.S. thesis on October 3rd, 2025 and completed the Pathology M.S. Program.

University of Iowa Health Care’s rare “brain bank” has contributed to a new study published in Nature that shows that repetitive head impact (RHI)-related brain injuries result in brain cell loss, inflammation, and vascular damage in young, former contact sport athletes. Importantly, many of these detrimental changes were seen in young athletes before the onset of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain condition that leads to problems with thinking and emotional regulation.

Aditya Joglekar and Quynh Pham, mentored by Nitin Karandikar, MD, PhD and Shujie Yang, PhD, were presented with the Richard G. Lynch Award Excellence in Pathology Research at the Medical Student Research Conference.

Shravan Kumar Kannan receives Ballard & Seashore Dissertation Fellowship for Spring 2026 Semester. Kannan is an Immunology PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Immunology and member of Vladimir Badovinac, PhD's research laboratory.

Kshitija Kale, MD. receives Ballard & Seashore Fellowship Award for Spring 2026 Semester. Dr. Kale is a student in our Experimental Pathology PhD program and a member of Nitin Karandikar, MD, PhD's research laboratory.

After 22 years in the Department of Pathology, Dr. Marcus Nashelsky has retired.

Nitin Karandikar, MD, PhD’s research laboratory focuses on the immune processes that underlie the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis, which is an immune-mediated demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS). His research group was the first to show the unexpected finding that CD8+ T cells targeted toward CNS antigens can suppress disease activity and could potentially be used as a therapeutic approach.

In a recent case report published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, a 41-year-old male was referred to the University of Iowa with bronchiectasis, chronic sinusitis, and peculiar airway calcifications.

Vladimir Badovinac, PhD and his research laboratory were recently featured in the American Association of Immunologists for their article, 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.