UT Southwestern’s 2021 class of Endowed Scholars in Medical Science includes scientists searching for the following: a way to harness the central nervous system to control pain, to degrade pathological proteins found in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and to better understand the long-running battle between bacteria and the viruses that infect them.

As Endowed Scholars, they will receive five years of financial support from 2021-2025 to carry out independent, cutting-edge research as tenure-track Assistant Professors. The Program, established in 1998 with $60 million in philanthropic funds, is designed to support early career clinical or basic science research.

UT Southwestern is proud of this year’s class of outstanding scientists, said David Mangelsdorf, Ph.D., Chair of the Endowed Scholar Committee. “It was a banner year for the Endowed Scholars Program. UT Southwestern is excited to welcome seven of the most talented new investigators in the nation to our campus. Pay attention to these folks – they are the future of this institution,” said Dr. Mangelsdorf, Chair of Pharmacology.

Learn more about each of the Endowed Scholars in their own words:

Seungwon (Sebastian) Choi, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychiatry

Virginia Murchison Linthicum Scholar in Medical Research

What led to a career in research: I became interested in pursuing my career in biomedical research when I went through a liver transplant surgery as a donor for my father back in college. While it was a tremendously difficult time for my family, my experience sparked a passion for biomedical sciences, and since then my graduate and postdoctoral training has shaped my long-term interest in neuroscience research.

Research focus: Every day, we experience a variety of sensations of the physical world through our skin: a hug from a loved one, a warm shower, a mosquito bite, or touching a hot pan. These touch, temperature, itch, and pain signals are detected by peripheral sensory neuron terminals and end organs distributed throughout our body and propagated into the spinal cord where they are processed and transmitted to the brain via ascending spinal pathways. My research aims to define the functional organization of ascending somatosensory circuitry and to use this knowledge to reveal how internal states and disorders of the nervous system shape our sense of touch and pain. My lab will explore these exciting research areas by using new mouse genetic tools in conjunction with advanced molecular, anatomical, physiological, and behavioral approaches.

Ultimate career goal: I hope that my research will reveal new therapeutic substrates for treating disorders associated with dysfunction of the somatosensory system. I am also committed to collaborative science, teaching and mentoring young scientists, and promoting diversity and inclusion in science.

Kevin Forsberg, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Microbiology

W.W. Caruth, Jr. Scholar in Biomedical Research

What led to a career in research: I took a high school course in biotechnology that motivated me to pursue biology as an undergraduate. In college, I was fortunate to find a fantastic research position at the Translational Genomics Research Institute, where I worked with bright, passionate, and empathetic people who showed me how creative, tangible, and rewarding a career in research could be. This motivated me to attend graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis with Gautam Dantas, Ph.D., whose excellent research environment gave me my first taste of professional success and provided me my first opportunity to mentor students. This combination proved to be an addictive elixir – I was hooked on research and set my vision squarely on making it my life’s work.

Research focus: My lab studies the longest standing conflict on Earth – the one between bacteria and the viruses that infect them, called phages. To keep pace with their adversaries, both bacteria and phages must constantly adapt to their competitor’s latest innovation, locking host and virus in a never-ending molecular arms race for survival. In many cases, however, it is difficult to predict whether the bacterium or phage will win this evolutionary tug-of-war, as the genes and systems that determine these outcomes are often poorly understood. The Forsberg lab aims to reveal many of these cryptic genes and mechanisms, using large-scale functional selections to find genes that influence phage-infection outcomes, followed by detailed experimentation to understand their mechanisms.

Ultimate career goal: When all is said and done, I’d like to end up like my postdoctoral mentor, Harmit Malik, Ph.D. (or, more reasonably, a poor approximation). In his group, there is a culture of support and empathy while, at the same time, a demand for rigor and celebration of ambition. He marks success both through scientific discovery and by the careers of those he has trained. He has his cake and gets to eat it, too. Because goals should be ambitious, I’d like a slice of what he’s having.

Yuuki Obata, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Immunology and Neuroscience

Nancy Cain and Jeffrey A. Marcus Scholar in Medical Research, in Honor of Dr. Bill S. Vowell

What led to a career in research: When I was an undergraduate, I was fascinated by the fact that gut microbiota have many beneficial effects on human health. This led me to study mucosal immunology and host-microbe interactions as a trainee at RIKEN, the large research institute in Japan where I learned how exciting the process of discovering the unknown can be. This experience made me realize that I wanted to work as a scientist.

Research focus: My research aims to understand how gut environmental factors (e.g., microbiota and diet) regulate neural circuits, immune responses, and neuroimmune crosstalk in health and diseases. We use a variety of experimental approaches, including viral tracing of gut nerves, in vivo and ex vivo physiological assays, gnotobiotic animal models, and multiomics technologies. I am also interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms of inter-organ communications such as the gut-brain axis.

Ultimate career goal: To pioneer and establish new areas of biomedical research and make discoveries that help people stay healthy.

Allan-Hermann Pool, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, Anesthesiology & Pain Management, and in the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute

Eugene McDermott Scholar in Biomedical Research

What led to a career in research: The initial spark that set me on this track was an introductory course in molecular and cell biology in high school that transformed the dull and messy discipline of biology into one of mesmerizing underlying logic and potential. What has enticed me about neuroscience is the chance to personally take a stab at understanding the mechanisms that provide a purpose to animal (including our own) behavior. A book that catalyzed my trajectory in this direction was Albert Camus’ “The Myth of Sisyphus,” which underscored the essential lack of purpose to our existence. Although I still agree with the underlying premise, it is the biological imperative to survive and the basic biological drives that make our subjective experience of the world profoundly meaningful. Being able to study the biological substrate that brings this about is something that has made research highly enjoyable for me. Also, the fact that it is possible to get paid to do that is still fantastical to me.

Research focus: I am interested in how basic biological motivations are represented in the brain and how they determine the direction and content of animal behavior. In particular, my lab focuses on one of these biological drives – the mammalian pain and pain relief system. Specifically, we study how distinct pain modalities are encoded in the central nervous system and how the endogenous pain relief circuits can control the perception of pain. Furthermore, we seek to take advantage of the cellular identity of these central circuit nodes to design precision gene therapies to gain control of this system and make it therapeutically addressable.

Ultimate career goal: I will be happy if as a result of my lab’s work we will understand both the cellular hardware and the operating principles of at least one of the basic drives, and generate a precise and simple means to reprogram cellular components of these systems outside specialized model organisms.

Courtney Schroeder, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Cell Biology

Deborah and W. A. “Tex” Moncrief, Jr. Scholar in Medical Research

What led to a career in research: My passion for research and the cytoskeleton was sparked by my time as an undergraduate working in the lab of Todd Stukenberg, Ph.D., at the University of Virginia. I studied a post-translational modification of microtubules, and I loved making discoveries, knowing I was treading new territory in biology. I also particularly enjoyed studying how proteins function at the molecular level. My Ph.D. adviser (Ron Vale, Ph.D.) and postdoctoral adviser (Harmit Malik, Ph.D.) further nurtured my love of academic research.

Research focus: My lab studies evolutionarily novel actin and tubulin proteins that span the animal kingdom. Given their essentiality, cytoskeletal proteins are commonly thought to be conserved throughout eukaryotic evolution, yet we have found many cytoskeletal genes are rapidly evolving – even between closely related species – and have adapted novel biological functions. We want to know what drives this genetic innovation and the biological consequences. We specifically use fruit flies and human tissue culture cells to study the functions of these unusual proteins, which appear to play important roles in both fertility and development. A subset of these proteins are misexpressed in cancer, and we will also explore how they may increase cancer cell survival.

Ultimate career goal: Scientifically, my career goal is to understand why cytoskeletal genes are diversifying. We know little about these novel actins and tubulins, and yet by studying them I think we gain insight into a number of biological processes that are under evolutionary pressure to diversify. Beyond the science, my goal is to mentor trainees to be successful and have fulfilling careers in or beyond academia.

Boyuan Wang, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Pharmacology

Southwestern Medical Foundation Scholar in Biomedical Research

What led to a career in research: A career in research is a childhood dream that probably began from observing my dad collecting exhaust samples from autos for analysis. My favorite class in high school was chemistry, for the obvious sense of achievement from making new compounds. This interest gradually drifted to bacteriology, as I wanted to learn more about this domain of life with the simplest cellular structure but the most diverse chemistry. At the same time, I retained my identity as a chemist to synthesize chemical probes to provide creative approaches to biological problems.

Research focus: My latest research involves attempts to understand why bacteria, when challenged by nutrient starvation, tend to enter a “persistent” state featuring metabolic dormancy and a remarkable level of tolerance against chemotherapies. Interestingly, almost all bacteria produce the same second messenger, (p)ppGpp, also known as magic spot nucleotides, in response to starvation. Once we know how (p)ppGpp coordinates the downregulation of all major aspects of bacterial physiology to an onset of dormancy, we may be able to design therapeutics to combat persistent infection.

Ultimate career goal: My ultimate goal is to understand bacteria to the extent that we can communicate with them using their language to not only resolve infectious diseases but also make them versatile tools, faithful friends, and an endless source of inspiration for all human beings.

Haiyang Yu, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Center for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases, of Molecular Biology, and in the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute

Effie Marie Cain Scholar in Medical Research

What led to a career in research: When I was in the fifth grade, I borrowed from the county library a charming book full of absorbing stories of chemists titled “Chemical Elements: The Fascinating Story of Their Discovery and of the Famous Scientists Who Discovered Them.” Particularly, I was fascinated by how Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff discovered rubidium and cesium in the 19th century using their cutting-edge equipment – the Bunsen burner and the Kirchhoff-Bunsen spectroscope. This book sparked the idea of becoming a scientist in my 11-year-old boy’s mind. Graduating from high school, I decided to pursue a career in biological sciences, as I felt that this field was booming just like chemistry did at the beginning of the 20th century.

Research focus: My group has two closely related research directions. First, we will determine how liquid-liquid phase separation contributes to protein aggregation in neurons. Fibrils can form and propagate in several age-related neurodegenerative diseases, such as tau in Alzheimer’s and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and alpha-synuclein in Parkinson’s. My previous work demonstrated that TDP-43, another aggregate-forming protein in FTD and ALS, forms liquid crystal condensates in cells. I plan to determine whether TDP-43 fibrils can arise from these liquid crystal condensates. Second, we will harness the cellular defense pathways to ameliorate pathological protein assemblies. In this direction, we plan to use conformation-specific antibodies to selectively degrade aggregated protein through proteasome-dependent or lysosomal pathways.

Ultimate career goal: Because of a growing older population, neurodegenerative diseases will be the next major health problem. I am devoted to elucidating the molecular mechanisms behind common dementia and to translating my findings into effective treatments for patients.