News

2019: 

• May: Tayne Andersen receives notification of an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) award. Tayne's project is titled "EPA-Ffar4 Signaling is Required to Reduce Inflammation in the Heart".

• May: Katie Ernste receives notification of an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) award. Katie's project is titled "Unique role for Ffar4 is independent of fibrosis".

2018: ​

• July: Katherine Murphy joins the O'Connell Lab and begins Minnesota Obesity Prevention training fellowship.

• May: Sabrine Garrison is awarded the Top Physiology Undergrad Scholar award at the 2018 Maurice Visscher Symposium for the highest GPA of all Physiology majors. 

• March: Brandon Wagner gets accepted into the Integrative Biology and Physiology (IBP) graduate program. 

• February: Erika Dahl successfully defends her thesis. 

• January: Sonal Joshi joins the O'Connell Lab. 

2017:

• October: Sabrine Garrison receives notification of an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) award. Sabrine's project title was "High Fat Diet Induced Obesity as a Model for Cardiac and Metabolic Dysfunction".

• July: Erika Dahl receives second place honors in the annual Cardiopalooza retreat.  She was judged with fifteen other graduate student peers.​

• July: Steve Wu, PhD, accepts a Research Assistant Professor position with the Integrative Biology & Physiology department.  

• May: Erika Dahl took second place honors in the department's Visscher Symposium Young Investigator's Competition

• May: Brandon Daly completed his honor's thesis titled "alpha1-Adrenergic Receptors Are Necessary for Normal Prostate Development in Mice".  Brandon's honors thesis fulfilled the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, in Biology, Society, and Environment.

• May: Brandon Wagner receives notification of an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) award. Brandon's project is titled "Ffar4 is Required for Beneficial Effects of Omega-3 PUFAs on Metabolism".

• May: Erika Dahl received a travel award from the International Society of Heart Research at the annual meeting in New Orleans, LA.  In addition, Erika's abstract was selected to be presented in oral format and her poster was the best in the group.​

• April: Erika Dahl received a travel grant from the Department of Pharmacology to attend the International Society of Heart Research annual meeting in New Orleans, LA.

• February: Penn State|News:  Fatty acids may lead to first heart failure treatments 

2016:

• August: Notification of funding arrives from NIH for the FFAR4/EPA project​

• May: Jocelyn Perry completed her honors thesis titled "Nuclear alpha1-adrenergic receptors and hypertrophic signaling in adult mouse cardiac myocytes. Jocelyn's honors thesis fulfilled the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, in Physiology.

2014:

• May: Julie Eclov successfully defends her thesis titled "​EPA, not DHA, prevents fibrosis in pressure overload induced heart failure; potential role of free fatty acid receptor 4"