TEAM MEMBERS
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Rajesh Gupta, PhD
ADA Postdoctoral Fellow Rajesh joined Dr. Bhatnagar’s lab in March 2016 as a Research Associate. He completed his PhD in Life Sciences from Banaras Hindu University, India. During his former postdoctoral training at LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, Rajesh studied the role of agouti related peptide (AgRP, an orexigenic peptide) in mouse adrenal gland which developed his interest in diabetes and beta cell biology. His research in the Bhatnagar's lab is focused on investigating the role of novel secreted proteins in pancreatic beta cells by using cell lines and mouse models. |
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Itika Arora, MBA, MS
Graduate Student Itika Arora is a PhD Scholar in Genetics, Genomics and Bioinformatics, GBS in UAB. She completed her Bachelors in Bioinformatics from SRM University, India along with an MBA in Marketing and Finance from IMT, Dubai, U.A.E. She further pursued her education by completing her Master's in Bioinformatics from Indiana University, Indianapolis, U.S.A. She has 4 years of experience in Drug Discovery and Precision Medicine in CDRI, India and DuBiotech, Dubai, U.A.E. Her area of interests are biochemistry, transcriptomics and molecular biology. She aspires to use computational skills to develop in-house bioinformatics tools to identify and characterize novel metabolic regulators of obesity, age, and T2D. Currently, she is working on understanding the role of G-protein coupled receptor in beta cell function. |
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Ankur Patel, BS Research II A diligent individual with an aptitude for science and passion for healthcare. He recently graduated from UAB with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering. He has professional experience with a biotech company, where he assisted in HPLC and size-exclusion chromatography for protein separation, performed microbrewery testing procedures, analyzed the collected data, reported results to customers, and recommended changes in the procedures. He started working in Bhatnagar's lab in May 2017 for academia experience. He manages the mice colonies, genotyping, bodyweight collection, GTT, ITT, and PTT. |
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Trung Huynh
Undergraduate Research Assistant Trung is in the Science and Technology Honors Program majoring in Molecular Biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.Currently a junior, he joined the Bhatnagar lab in his freshman year. He plans to pursue a career as a physician-scientist. |
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Dan Nguyen
Undergraduate Research Assistant Dan Nguyen is a sophomore undergraduate student in the Science and Technology Honors Program. He majors in Chemistry with a Biochemistry concentration as well as minors in Computer Science. He joined the lab in the fall of 2016 and has been working on immunofluorescent staining and imaging of alpha cells, INS1 cells, HEK cells, and pancreatic sections to look for protein interactions in the Syt9 and C1ql3 projects. He also maintains the cell cultures by reseeding and changing media for INS1 and HEK Cells. As a long-term goal, Dan wishes to pursue a career as a physician. |