Raeesa Gupte successfully passed her Ph.D. examination on Thursday, July 16, 2015. Her thesis title was “Phosphoregulation of Somatodendritic Voltage-Gated Potassium Channels by Pituitary Adenylate Cyclase-activating Polypeptide”. Members of her thesis committee were chair, DP Mohapatra, Adjunct Associate Professor from the Department of Pharmacology, Stefan Strack from the Department of Pharmacology and Pathology, Yuriy Usachev from the Department of Pharmacology and Anesthesia, Christopher Benson from the Department of Anesthesia and Pharmacology and Any Lee from the Department of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics.

Dr. Gupte’s research focused on distinct modulations in somatodendritic Kv channels and regulation of neuronal excitability in ischemic stroke. She received her BPharm in Pharmacy from the University of Mumbai, India and her M.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, MO and entered the Biosciences Program at Iowa in 2010. She joined the Pharmacology Department in 2011 to begin the Ph.D. phase of her training. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Kansas with Dr. Janna Harris. She will be using magnetic resonance spectroscopy as a non-invasive means for identifying biomarkers for traumatic brain injury (TBI). My project also entails determining whether sensorimotor functions can be restored in aged populations after TBI using the amino acid taurine.

Congratulations to Dr. Gupte!