15 Good Minutes: Curtis Henry, PhD

Can you give our readers a brief introduction to yourself? My name is Curtis James Henry. I’m an assistant professor of pediatrics here at Emory University School of Medicine. I’m also a member of the NCI-designated Winship Cancer Institute in the cancer immunology program, and a member of the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center. I’m an immunologist by training: I received my PhD in 2008 from Wake Forest University, where I studied the impact of inflammation in modulating immune responses – specifically T-cell responses and trying to determine how to make better vaccines by manipulating the inflammatory environment. After Read More …

15 Good Minutes: Chunhui Xu, PhD

Chunhui Xu, PhD, is an associate professor of pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine specializing in cardiogenesis — the study of the development of the embryonic heart. Researchers in her lab turn human pluripotent (immature) stem cells, or hPSCs, into cardiac muscle cells. It’s an innovation that holds hope for disease modeling, drug screening, and regenerative medicine. March 2020 marked the end of a stellar project: Cardiac cells were shown to be cultivated more efficiently in the microgravity environment of space. The experiment, devised by Emory professor Chunhui Xu, PhD, in partnership with Kevin Maher, MD, began years ago Read More …

15 Good Minutes: Samuel Sober, PhD

The singing of Bengalese finches led Samuel Sober, PhD, to a breakthrough technology for understanding how the brain controls movement and the processes of sensorimotor learning. “Songbirds are the best model system for understanding how the brain controls complex vocal behavior, and one of the best systems for understanding control of motor behavior in general,” says Sober, Emory associate professor of biology. This breakthrough comes after decades in the neuroscience field. After getting his bachelor’s in neuroscience and behavior, Sober pursued a doctorate in neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco. His doctoral thesis researched human motor planning and Read More …

15 Good Minutes: Stefan Sarafianos

Stefan Sarafianos is the rare researcher whose expertise spans structural biology, biochemistry, and virology. He recently led the groundbreaking development of a SARS-CoV-2 subgenomic replicon system, including mutants, that can be used for high-throughput screening and characterization of SARS-CoV-2 replicase inhibitors at a lower biosafety level—considerable benefits for pursuing studies such as drug discovery and inhibitors assay. Many of us are familiar with the bedeviling question: “Do you want it faster, cheaper, and better? Pick one.” In the case of the replicon system Stefan Sarafianos has developed, researchers studying SARS-CoV-2 are able to benefit from all three and add one Read More …

15 Good Minutes: Jorge Vidal

Jorge Vidal was born and raised in Villahermosa, the capital of the Mexican state of Tabasco, where his father worked as a petroleum engineer. He found his calling, however, in his mother’s nearby hometown. “I spent a lot of time there with my grandmother,” Vidal recalls. “It was a small place in north Tabasco, near the beach, which was fun.” He also enjoyed hanging around a microbiology lab in the town where his aunt owned a clinical laboratory. “She would culture a blood sample in a petri dish one day and the next day, if the individual had an infection, Read More …

15 Good Minutes: Jen Heemstra

Jen Heemstra, PhD is a Professor of Chemistry at Emory University. In 2017, Jen and her research group moved from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Utah to the Department of Chemistry at Emory University. Research in the Heemstra lab is focused on harnessing the molecular recognition and self-assembly properties of nucleic acids for applications in biosensing and bioimaging. For Emory Professor Jen Heemstra, Ph.D., her career in supramolecular chemistry is constantly focusing on both creativity and innovation. To Heemstra, this field of supramolecular chemistry is fun and exciting, since it is a field that involves constant learning Read More …

15 Good Minutes: Eric Wagner

For Emory Orthopedic Surgeon Eric Wagner, MD, research isn’t just a side pursuit. Despite maintaining a busy clinical practice, Wagner has managed to make research into what he calls a “second career.” Wagner and his partner, Michael Gottschalk, MD, currently have over 45 ongoing projects, with topics running the gambit from managing opioid addiction to helping tendons heal. Wagner has published over 185 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and his work has had a substantial impact in improving patient outcomes from orthopedic procedures. “We take some complex surgeries where patients don’t traditionally do as well and try to make them better Read More …

15 Good Minutes: Erik Dreaden

Erik Dreaden, PhD is an assistant professor in Emory’s department of pediatrics and department of biomedical engineering, a shared department between Emory and GA Tech. The Dreaden Lab has been working hard to create an exciting light-responsive immunotherapy technology. This unique technology works to target cancer cells using light. The goal of this developing technology is to improve current cancer therapies and immunotherapy. Dreaden’s interest in the field of cancer grew over time, as cancer has been a large part of his life. His father battled melanoma and colon cancer, so it has personally impacted his work and touched him. Read More …

15 Good Minutes: Nathan Jui

For Emory Assistant Professor Dr. Nathan Jui, the inspiration for his career in organic chemistry evolved in part from interests in cooking and building. Jui enjoys working on both of these in day to day life and sees similarities with his chemistry interest. Despite the complicated nature of his work, Jui believes that chemistry is similar on to these tasks as it similarly involves manipulating matter, just on a much smaller scale. In his research career, Jui uses this basic chemistry principle for groundbreaking scientific research in areas from cancer drugs to gene expression. “Life is a bunch of molecules Read More …

15 Good Minutes: Hee Cheol Cho

Issues surrounding cardiovascular health and disease are personal for Dr. Hee Cheol Cho. Dr. Cho lost his father to a heart attack, and his father lost his siblings to heart attacks. “The topic of cardiovascular disease is embedded in my family and blood,” Dr. Cho said. Hee Cheol Cho, Ph.D. is a stem cell and cardiology researcher, Urowsky-Sahr Scholar in Pediatric Bioengineering, and Associate Professor at the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Pediatrics at Emory and Georgia Tech. Dr. Cho’s research focuses on cardiac pacemaker cells and developing a gene-and cell-based treatment for cardiac arrhythmia. His “biological pacemaker” is a Read More …

15 Good Minutes: Hari Trivedi

After completing an undergraduate degree in engineering at Georgia Tech, Emory Assistant-Professor Dr. Hari Trivedi began medical school with an open mind about what field to specialize in. While exploring different fields, Trivedi began to grow interested in the intersection of medicine and technology. He eventually settled on his chosen field, radiology, after witnessing how it combined his interests in both medicine and engineering. “During radiology rotations, I thought radiology was just so cool because radiologists get all the newest toys,” Trivedi said. “I remember seeing my first 3D reconstruction of a CT scan, and that’s when I was like, Read More …

15 Good Minutes: Ichiro Matsumura

For Emory Professor of Biochemistry Ichiro Matsumura, PhD, inspiration to pursue a career in research came from an unlikely source: a concussion. When Matsumura was in college at MIT, he got into a bike accident that left him hospitalized for several months. After being released from the hospital, Matsumura was prepared to retake all his courses from that semester over the summer. However, one of Matsumura’s professors, Harry Lodish, gave him the option to write a report from a list of topics instead of retaking the course, given that he had done well on the class’s first midterm. The topic Read More …

15 Good Minutes: William Wuest

Antibiotics have been one of the most consequential innovations in human history, allowing us to treat a wide variety of bacterial diseases that could otherwise be damaging or fatal. However, bacterial resistant to these antibiotics is on the rise, necessitating a constant drive to discover new antibiotic drugs as older ones are rendered less effective. One of the scientists on this forefront of this push is Emory Associate Professor and Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Investigator, William Wuest, PhD. Wuest runs a lab that is focused on finding novel antibiotics to fight bacterial infections. Recently he and his team have made Read More …

15 Good Minutes: Cassandra Quave

When most people think about medicine, plants are not what immediately jumps to mind. However, for Emory Assistant Professor Cassandra Quave, PhD, the relationship between plants and medicine is career-defining. Quave is an ethnobotanist, meaning she studies human interaction with plants and their potential medical properties. Her work has led to important discoveries including treatments for eczema and skin infections. Quave describes her research as investigating compounds on a fundamental level, derived from their source in plants. She and her lab then determine whether the compound has properties that would allow it to be used in medicine. “In a single Read More …