Two UTSW researchers awarded Hanna H. Gray Fellowships
Two UTSW postdoctoral researchers – a microbiologist who co-authored a study on the virus that causes COVID-19 and a physician-scientist studying a form of heart failure that affects many with obesity – have been selected as Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Hanna H. Gray Fellows for 2023. Alexandra Wells, Ph.D., and Lisandro Maya-Ramos, M.D., Ph.D., are two of only 25 scientists nationwide to receive that honor this year.
The Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program aims to recruit and retain early-career scientists to become leaders to inspire, train, and mentor future generations. The program provides up to $1.5 million in funding over eight years and includes mentoring and networking opportunities within the HHMI community. The support can extend into the first years of a faculty position.
In addition to UT Southwestern, this year’s fellows come from Stanford University, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, and other top-tier institutions. Dr. Maya-Ramos is one of just four physician-scientists recognized this year.
The UTSW projects selected represent two crucial areas of public health – the COVID-19 pandemic and the obesity epidemic.
Alexandra Wells, Ph.D.
The work of Dr. Wells focuses on how the body defends against viral infections, which ignite a powerful immune pathway that sounds the alarm against foreign invaders. The proteins induced by this cascade possess remarkable antiviral potential, said Dr. Wells, who wants to reveal how those molecules carry out that counterattack, paving the way for improved methods to test potential therapies. Dr. Wells is co-author of a Schoggins Lab study published in Nature Microbiology in July that identified an antiviral protein (LY6E) that inhibits infection by SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – in mammals (mice).
“This award recognizes Alex’s previous scientific achievements and her high potential to make new discoveries in academic science and become a leader in the field,” said John Schoggins, Ph.D., Professor of Microbiology. “This is a huge honor for Alex, our lab, and UTSW.”
Dr. Wells grew up in a small New Jersey town where she struggled with reading and excelled at science and softball.
“Softball taught me how to truly work hard for something I wanted, which was to be one of the best softball players in the state and continue the sport in college,” she said. To reach her goal, she practiced after school, on weekends, and during school holidays, eventually playing for Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. That’s where she got lab experience studying a virus that contributes to honeybee colony collapse. “I quickly recognized my diverse learning style benefited me in the lab, where I could learn in a hands-on way,” she said.
During her research work, she found deep satisfaction in passing on what she had learned by training new lab members. For that reason, she welcomes the fellowship’s emphasis on mentoring. “My childhood taught me that not everyone processes information the same way. I will mentor trainees using an individualized approach so they can thrive using their unique strengths,” she said.
As a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, she studied enteroviruses, including the poliovirus, under the leadership of Carolyn Coyne, Ph.D. Together, they discovered the cellular receptor (FcRn) by which a group of enteroviruses, called echoviruses, enter human cells. At the time, there were no mouse models to study echovirus pathogenesis. However, following this discovery, she was able to establish a novel mouse model that could be used to test therapeutic and vaccine candidates. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nonpolio enteroviruses are usually mild, although infants and people of any age with weakened immune systems are at risk of serious complications.
In the Schoggins Lab, Dr. Wells seeks to uncover the molecular mechanisms by which host proteins can suppress viral infections. During her fellowship, she hopes to identify specific proteins that act to inhibit enteroviruses and flaviviruses, a family of mosquito-borne pathogens that includes West Nile virus, Zika virus, and yellow fever.
Lisandro Maya-Ramos, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Maya-Ramos overcame adversity on the road to his career in patient care and research.
“Becoming a physician-scientist as a first-generation college student and Latino immigrant has not been a smooth road. I grew up in a rural town in Oaxaca, Mexico. Despite the lack of resources and professional role models, I set out to become a physician after seeing the effects of heart disease in my family,” he said.
His father, an elementary school teacher, immigrated to the U.S. to become a farm worker, moving the family from southern Mexico to Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, California. He was able to become a U.S. citizen under a program that began in the 1980s for migrant workers.
Dr. Maya-Ramos graduated from an international baccalaureate school, arriving in the U.S. one month before beginning community college with still-shaky English skills.
“I had to learn a new language and leave a straightforward path to medicine in Mexico behind,” he said. To help his family financially, he picked up jobs as a handyman at Home Depot. Later, as he excelled at school, he became a science tutor.
He transferred to the University of California, San Diego, where he started a chapter of Project Nicaragua to raise funds to purchase medical equipment. He joined a group of seven students delivering a special drill for brain surgery and other supplies and remained in Central America for three weeks, which gave him the opportunity to watch physicians in action.
In Nicaragua, he saw children with spina bifida, a condition in which the spinal cord fails to develop correctly. The disease has become less common in the United States thanks to the discovery that providing pregnant women with folic acid supplements reduces the likelihood of the disorder.
“That got me thinking that sometimes science can have a wider effect on the population than a doctor alone,” he said. This revelation prompted Dr. Maya-Ramos to switch his career from clinical medicine to research before realizing that he could combine both as an M.D./Ph.D.
After graduating with honors from college, Dr. Maya-Ramos completed his M.D./Ph.D. at the University of California, San Francisco in 2020, then joined UTSW in the Physician Scientist Training Program (PSTP) in cardiology. He now has two mentors. The first is cardiologist Joseph A. Hill, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Internal Medicine and Molecular Biology and Director of the Harry S. Moss Heart Center. The second is Philipp Scherer, Ph.D., Director of the Touchstone Center for Diabetes Research and a world-renowned leader in the basic science of fat storage as well as a Professor of Internal Medicine and Cell Biology.
“Lisandro is an inspiration to us all. Growing up in a humble background in Oaxaca, Mexico, he excelled in college in San Diego – in English, a new language for him. Fascinated by biology and driven by an abiding desire to help the underprivileged, especially those of Latino origin, he attended medical school, earning both M.D. and Ph.D. degrees,” said Dr. Hill, adding: “We are thrilled that Lisandro has chosen UT Southwestern for the final stages of his training as a cardiologist-scientist.”
Now Dr. Maya-Ramos cares for patients, a role in which he encounters the subject of his Hanna Gray Fellowship project. Many of his patients have heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), a condition for which there are few treatments. The majority of those patients have obesity, and low-grade inflammation appears to be an underlying factor, he said. Dr. Maya-Ramos said he believes the next big breakthrough for that condition lies at the intersection of cardiology and metabolism, hence his investigations in two different laboratories. For his fellowship project, he wants to unravel how a fat tissue-derived peptide signals to the heart, resulting in inflammation and fibrosis (stiffness).