Dr. Walter Low is a Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery and serves as the Associate Head for Research. He earned his PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Michigan, and was a National Science Foundation/NATO Fellow in Neurophysiology/Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge in England. He is currently Director of the Research Laboratories in the Department of Neurosurgery.
Dr. Ming Xu received his bachelor degree of Biological Science from Fudan University, one of the top 3 universities in China in 2004. His research experience on metabolic dysfunction began when he came to the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) for his graduate studies in 2006. As a graduate student, Dr. Xu mainly worked on the role of Ncb5or on metabolic dysfunction using both animal and cell models. In 2011, he joined Dr. James Kirkland’s lab within Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging at the Mayo Clinic for postdoctoral training.
Dawn Lowe, PhD, is a Professor in the Division of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science. She earned her doctorate at the University of Georgia in Exercise Science studying skeletal muscle physiology and completed post-doctoral work first at the University of South Florida in aging muscle biology and then at the University of Minnesota in muscle biophysics.
Dr. Manda Keller-Ross is an Associate Professor in the Division of Physical Therapy within the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. Her research laboratory investigates the critical intersection of female aging, menopause, and cardiovascular health, with a specific focus on autonomic and vascular function. Her work aims to elucidate the precise mechanistic pathways linking menopause, specifically premature sex-hormone loss and menopause symptomology, such as hot flashes and sleep difficulty to elevated blood pressure and an increased risk for cardiovascular disease.
Professor Varun Gadkari earned his B.S. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from The Ohio State University in 2012 and 2017, respectively. His doctoral research focused on the biochemical and biophysical characterization of DNA replication proteins using both ensemble and single-molecule approaches. Seeking innovative techniques to explore protein structure and dynamics, he transitioned into the field of native mass spectrometry for his postdoctoral training.
Mark Distefano is currently a Distinguished McKnight Professor of Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Minnesota. He received his B.A. degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, his Ph.D. degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology. He has published more than 200 research articles, book chapters and reviews and is currently Editor in Chief for Bioorganic Chemistry and Chair-Elect for the American Chemical Society BIOL Division.
The broad goals of Dr. Laurie Parker's research are to develop and implement chemical biology and proteomics technologies for analyzing protein phosphorylation and kinase activity. Her lab has developed novel peptide kinase substrates and strategies to measure their phosphorylation using mass spectrometry-based phosphoproteomics, immunodetection in vitro and in cell-based assays, and time-resolved fluorescence, via phosphorylation-sensitized lanthanide fluorescence in vitro and by fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy in cells. The Parker lab also collaborates with Dr.
Dr. Paul Robbins is a Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics and the Associate Director of the Masonic Institute on the Biology of Aging and Metabolism (MIBAM) and the Medical Discovery Team on the Biology of Aging at the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Juan Carlos Rivera-Mulia is an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota whose research investigates the spatiotemporal control of DNA replication and its implications for human development, aging, and disease. His laboratory develops and applies functional multiomic approaches to map replication timing, transcriptomes, and chromatin architecture. His work aims to uncover the mechanisms linking epigenomic regulation to age-associated functional decline and disease.
Dr. Kletzien’s research focuses on uncovering fundamental processes driving age-related disorders and diseases in head and neck muscles that affect swallowing function. Her research program aims to reveal the central role of these tissues’ somatic stem cells in tissue homeostasis, degeneration and regeneration and how their dysfunction contributes to swallowing difficulty with increasing age and the development of neurodegenerative diseases, as well as their capacity to serve as potential oncogenic reservoirs across lifespan and in states of premalignancy and active disease.