Congratulations to our newly matched students!

Patrick McMullan, MD, PhD – Dermatology at UConn Health

Bruce Rheaume, MD, PhD – Internal Medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center

Lauren Marazzi Hinson, MD, PhD – Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University

Prakhar Bansal, MD, PhD – Psychiatry at UT Southwestern

Kristin Tokarski Kinstler, MD, PhD – Pediatric Physician-Scientist Training Program (PPSTP) at the University of Michigan

Nathan Leclair, MD, PhD – Radiation Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center

Brandon Byrd, MD, PhD – OB/GYN at University of Buffalo

Justin King (Dr. Archana Sanjay’s lab) was appointed to a PhD position supported by the UConn-NIDCR T90/R90 Research Training Program for skeletal, craniofacial and oral biology research. Cullen Clairmont (Dr. Ching Lau’s lab) was appointed as a trainee supported by the UConn/JAX-GM Training Program in Genomic Sciences T32. Congraduations to both of them!

UConn’s MD/PhD Program would like to congratulate our program director Dr. Kimberly Dodge-Kafka for her recent NIH grant award. This funding expands upon Dr. Dodge-Kafka’s prestigious work examining cardiac cell signaling networks with the ultimate goal of developing new therapies for heart disease. For more on her accomplishments please read her spotlight article in “UConn Today” Here

We send our congratulations to the graduating MD-PhD students! Their dedication and hard work are remarkable, and we are grateful for their contributions to our program. While we will miss them, we await their future achievements as they become leaders in medicine and beyond!

Jennifer Chen: Nassau University Medical Center, NY (transitional year), University of Connecticut School of Medicine – Dermatology

Katherine DiScipio: Methodist Hospital, Houston, TX – Anatomic and Clinical Pathology

Alexandra Goetjen: New Hanover Regional Medical Center, NC – Family Medicine

Feria Ladha: Boston Combined Residency Program in Pediatrics, Boston, MA – Pediatrics (Physician-Scientist Research Track)

Peter Larson: University of Cincinnati Medical Center, OH – Otolaryngology

Anthony Pettinato: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA – Internal Medicine (Physician-Scientist Research Track)

Victor Wang: Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD – Pediatrics/Medical Genetics.

Keaton Karlinsey, of Dr. Beiyan Zhou’s lab, has been awarded the prestigious NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein F30 Award! This highly competitive honor recognizes Keaton’s outstanding qualities as a future physician-scientist and the merits of his project, “Predicting Cardiovascular Outcomes Using Diabetes-Induced Transcriptomic Networks.” We’re proud of Keaton and can’t wait to see all the incredible things he will accomplish in the future!

Redwan Bhuiyan, of the Stitzel Lab at JAX Genomic Medicine, was awarded the prestigious NIH F30 Award. Redwan is investigating the impact of human genetic variation on human pancreatic islet stress responses in the context of diabetes.

Tima Karginov, an athlete, creative developer, and winner of the 2022 AHA Predoctoral Fellowship, a 2-yr. fellowship for research on T cells, RNA splicing, and cardiovascular disease.

And that’s not all. He was also awarded the 2021 AAI Young Investigator Award for top poster presentation at the Immunology Conference and the 2022 AAI Travel Award for his oral presentation at the American Association of Immunologists Conference. Well done, Tima!

Omar Omar Moustafa Fathy of Dr. Patrick Murphy’s lab was award the American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship for his project on “Understanding the role of TDP-43 in the cerebral vasculature in neurodegenerative disease. Congratulations Omar!

Nathan Gasek of Dr. Ming Xu’s lab was award the NIH NRSA-F30 Fellowship! His research is titled: “Investigating the role of p32-highly expressing senescent cells in Alzheimer’s Dementia.” Congratulations Nathan on this huge accomplishment!