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Kalyanam Shivkumar, Ph.D.

Kalyanam Shivkumar, Ph.D.

Dr. Shivkumar is a physician scientist who serves as the director of the UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Center & EP Programs (since its establishment in 2002). His is a graduate of the UCLA STAR Program (class of 2000) and his field of specialization is interventional cardiac electrophysiology. He leads a large group at UCLA (comprising a diverse group of fifteen faculty members, several trainees and sixty staff + allied health professionals) involved in clinical care, teaching, research and biomedical innovation. The team provides state of the art clinical care, has developed several innovative therapies (e.g. epicardial ablation, neuromodulation) for the non-pharmacological management of cardiac arrhythmias and other cardiac interventions. The team has a major focus on mechanistic research on the neural control of the mammalian heart. Dr. Shivkumar also serves as the director and chief of the UCLA Cardiovascular Interventional Programs. Dr. Shivkumar’s research work relates to mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias in humans especially the role of the autonomic nervous system and his research work transcends the perspective of a single organ and has implications for neurovisceral sciences in general. The UCLA Neurocardiology Research Program of Excellence was established by him as the specialized research arm of the Arrhythmia Center in 2014. Dr. Shivkumar and his colleagues are actively involved in human mechanistic studies, development of new intellectual property and medical technology for cardiovascular therapeutics. His IP has been incorporated into medical devices that are now FDA approved and in clinical use. He serves as an editor for several journals in cardiology and cardiac electrophysiology, and is a peer reviewer for several basic science and clinical journals. He also serves as a peer reviewer for the NIH in evaluating cardiac arrhythmia & neuroscience research. His research has been supported by grants from the American Heart Association, the Doris Duke Foundation, private donors and from the NIH (continuously since 2006). Currently Dr. Shivkumar oversees a 15-university NIH consortium on neural control of the heart. Dr. Shivkumar has mentored several STAR awardees and has received several teaching awards. He has been appointed to serve on the board of examiners for Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Section of the ABIM (American Board of Internal Medicine). He has been elected to the membership of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and serves as the institutional representative of UCLA for the ASCI. He was elected as an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London) in 2016 & President of the ISAN (International Society of Autonomic Neuroscience) in 2019.

https://www.mcip.ucla.edu/indiv-faculty-page/?id=3385
http://www.neuroscience.ucla.edu/profile/shivkumar-kalyanam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6NKp2Rc7c8
http://arrhythmia.ucla.edu/
https://www.the-asci.org/controllers/asci/AsciProfileController.php?pid=…
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Shivkumar+K[Author]

Felix E. Schweizer, Ph.D.

Felix Schweizer, Ph.D.

Biography

Felix E. Schweizer was born in Basel, Switzerland and conducted his graduate research in the laboratory of Prof. Max M. Burger under the direction of Dr. Theo Schafer. He received his PhD degree in biochemistry summa cum laude from the University of Basel in 1989. From 1990 to 1994, he was a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University in the laboratory of Prof. Richard W. Tsien. From 1994 to 1998, he was postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Neurobiology at Duke University in the laboratory of Professor George J. Augustine. Dr. Schweizer joined the Department of Neurobiology in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in 1998 as Assistant Professor and was promoted to Full Professor in 2010. Dr. Schweizer’s research interests concern the molecular mechanisms by which neurons communicate, the regulation of communication by neurons and how alterations in neuronal communication might contribute to neuronal diseases. The Schweizer laboratory uses electrophysiological and optical tools to investigate the dynamic molecular mechanisms underlying the regulation of neurotransmitter release. We are particularly interested in the role of protein ubiquitination in regulating neuronal excitability and synaptic transmission. In collaboration with Dr. James Wohlschlegel, we used multiplexed SILAC and identified synaptic proteins that are dynamically regulated. More recently, in collaboration with Dr. David Krantz, we are using pesticides linked to neuro-degenerative disorders as unbiased tools identify novel pathways that might be involved in early signs of degeneration. In addition, we are characterizing transmission at the first synapse of the vestibular system, i.e. between utricular sensory hair cells and primary afferent neurons. In collaboration with Dr. Larry Hoffman we are finding that changing the gravitational load alters synaptic structures. We are now using serial EM and EM tomography in addition to physiology and cell biology to define in more detail the transfer function between head-movement input and afferent nerve-firing output.

Alvaro Sagasti, Ph.D.

Alvaro Sagasti, Ph.D.

Biography

Dr. Sagasti received his PhD from UCSF, where he worked with Cori Bargmann studying celll specification and left/right asymmetry in the nervous system of the nematode C. elegans. He began using zebrafish as a model at the Skirball Institute, NYU Medical Center as a post-doc with Alex Schier. In the summer of 2005 he was a Grass Foundation Fellow at the Marine Biological Labs in Woods Hole, Massachussetts. He began as a UCLA faculty member in the MCDB department in September 2005. His lab uses a combination of imaging, molecular, and genetic approaches in zebrafish to investigate on the morphogenesis of sensory axons and skin cells during development and repair.

Publications

A selected list of publications:

Vargas Mauricio Enrique, Yamagishi Yuya, Tessier-Lavigne Marc, Sagasti Alvaro   Live Imaging of Calcium Dynamics during Axon Degeneration Reveals Two Functionally Distinct Phases of Calcium Influx The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2015; 35(45): 15026-38.
Rasmussen Jeffrey P, Sack Georgeann S, Martin Seanna M, Sagasti Alvaro   Vertebrate epidermal cells are broad-specificity phagocytes that clear sensory axon debris The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2015; 35(2): 559-70.
O’Donnell Kelley C, Lulla Aaron, Stahl Mark C, Wheat Nickolas D, Bronstein Jeff M, Sagasti Alvaro   Axon degeneration and PGC-1α-mediated protection in a zebrafish model of α-synuclein toxicity Disease models & mechanisms, 2014; 7(5): 571-82.
O’Donnell Kelley C, Vargas Mauricio E, Sagasti Alvaro   WldS and PGC-1α regulate mitochondrial transport and oxidation state after axonal injury The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2013; 33(37): 14778-90.
Palanca Ana Marie S, Lee Sung-Ling, Yee Laura E, Joe-Wong Carlee, Trinh Le A, Hiroyasu Elizabeth, Husain Majid, Fraser Scott E, Pellegrini Matteo, Sagasti Alvaro   New transgenic reporters identify somatosensory neuron subtypes in larval zebrafish Developmental neurobiology, 2013; 73(2): 152-67.
Villegas Rosario, Martin Seanna M, O’Donnell Kelley C, Carrillo Simon A, Sagasti Alvaro, Allende Miguel L   Dynamics of degeneration and regeneration in developing zebrafish peripheral axons reveals a requirement for extrinsic cell types Neural development, 2012; 7(6): 19.
O’Brien Georgeann S, Rieger Sandra, Wang Fang, Smolen Gromoslaw A, Gonzalez Robert E, Buchanan JoAnn, Sagasti Alvaro   Coordinate development of skin cells and cutaneous sensory axons in zebrafish The Journal of comparative neurology, 2012; 520(4): 816-31.
Wang Fang, Wolfson Sean N, Gharib Arash, Sagasti Alvaro   LAR receptor tyrosine phosphatases and HSPGs guide peripheral sensory axons to the skin Current biology : CB, 2012; 22(5): 373-82.
Rieger Sandra, Sagasti Alvaro   Hydrogen peroxide promotes injury-induced peripheral sensory axon regeneration in the zebrafish skin PLoS biology, 2011; 9(5): e1000621.
Martin Seanna M, O’Brien Georgeann S, Portera-Cailliau Carlos, Sagasti Alvaro   Wallerian degeneration of zebrafish trigeminal axons in the skin is required for regeneration and developmental pruning Development (Cambridge, England), 2010; 137(23): 3985-94.
O’Brien Georgeann S, Martin Seanna M, Söllner Christian, Wright Gavin J, Becker Catherina G, Portera-Cailliau Carlos, Sagasti Alvaro   Developmentally regulated impediments to skin reinnervation by injured peripheral sensory axon terminals Current biology : CB, 2009; 19(24): 2086-90.
Sagasti, A Guido, MR Raible, DW Schier, AF.   Repulsive interactions shape the morphologies and functional arrangement of zebrafish peripheral sensory arbors Current biology , 2005; 15(9): 804-14.
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