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UNMC Postdocs of the Year Xinming Liu, Ph.D., left, and Gurudutt Pendyala, Ph.D., right, with Iqbal Ahmad, Ph.D., associate dean and director of postdoctoral education and research at UNMC. (Andrew E. Nelson, UNMC public relations) |
Dr. Pendyala works in the department of pharmacology and experimental neuroscience, and Dr. Liu, does research in the department of pharmaceutical sciences.
What is your research focus?
Dr. Liu: My current research focus on the development of targeted macromolecular therapies for musculoskeletal diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis; and the development of new therapies for oral and craniofacial diseases such as dental caries.
Dr. Pendyala: My research focuses on two major neurodegenerative diseases — HIV associated dementia and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). I focus on profiling biofluids such as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and plasma using quantitative mass spectrometry-based proteomics and metabolomics to identify biomarkers.
How will the award help your career and research?
Dr. Liu: Since new drug discovery and development is a long, complicated and costly process, I have great interest in the area of old drugs, new therapies for various diseases. This prestigious postdoctoral scholar award … will definitely contribute valuable credit for my career development in academia.
Dr. Pendyala: This award has further strengthened my desire to pursue a scientific career as an independent investigator in academia. With the training and success I had under the mentorship of Dr. Howard Fox, I am currently extending my research focus to analyze changes occuring within the brain itself. This is an ideal platform towards launching my independent career.
What do you enjoy about working at UNMC?
Dr. Liu: As Nebraska’s only public academic health sciences center, UNMC has a lot of multi-disciplinary programs and resources for both basic scientists and clinical scientists. I enjoy this convenient working environment and do believe these will greatly enhance my knowledge in medicine, help me find potential collaboration and achieve my career goal on the development of new therapies for the treatment of incurable human diseases.
Dr. Pendyala: The wonderful research experience here at UNMC has provided me a great platform to interact with pioneers in both clinical and biomedical research. Such interactions are crucial when the focus is on translating scientific findings to treating diseases.
Congrats guys! Glad to see UNMC has wonderful scientists working hard!
Cong to their excellent works!
Nevertheless, should also include their mentors' names because they provide with the opportunities and thus deserve the recognition.