The College of Science is proud to announce the newest installment of the University of North Texas' SMART Talk series, which will feature University Distinguished Research Professor of Biological Sciences, Dr. Pudur Jagadeeswaran. On October 26, 2022 at 4pm in the UNT Union Lyceum, Dr. Jagadeeswaran will be presenting an engaging lecture entitled, "My journey with the zebrafish to conquer blood disorders."
ABOUT THE TALK
In the event of injury, blood clotting is a defense mechanism that prevents the injured from bleeding. However, clotting inside the blood vessels leads to thrombosis. If thrombosis occurs in heart vessels, it is called a heart attack; if it happens in the brain, it is called a stroke. Decades of research have identified several factors that play a role in clotting. However, we do not know much about the regulators of clotting. Since zebrafish have similarities to humans, we introduced this fish as a genetic model to study clotting and, using genetic methods, discovered several new regulatory factors. This discovery has paved the way for the development of novel antithrombotic drugs.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr. Pudur Jagadeeswaran is a University Distinguished Research Professor at the University of North Texas who has been conducting research on blood coagulation for forty years. He received his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science, where he determined a bacterial 5S RNA sequence. As a postdoctoral fellow at Yale, he sequenced the human globin gene cluster that led to the discovery of Alu families. He served as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he cloned human clotting factor genes and identified hemophilia mutations. He then moved to UTHSCSA as an associate professor and rose to the rank of full professor. He created mouse model of one hemophilia mutation. He then pioneered the zebrafish model to study the genetics of coagulopathies and moved to UNT, where he has been a professor and researcher since 2005. Since then, he has identified several novel hemostasis genes using the zebrafish model, for which he acquired the name in the hemostasis community as "Father of Zebrafish Hemostasis."
Dr. Jagadeeswaran has published more than 100 papers and has been funded by NIH totaling approximately $8M over the past forty years. Besides his regular teaching, he has mentored 18 postdoctoral fellows, 19 graduate students, and more than 70 high school, undergraduate, and MD students. He has served on departmental, university, international and national committees, including NIH study section panels. He serves on the editorial board of Blood Coagulation and Fibrinolysis and BBA Molecular Cell Research journals. He organized national and international meetings and has chaired in these conferences. He received ASIOA Mario Toppo distinguished scientist and lifetime achievement awards.
ABOUT COS SMART TALKS
The SMART Talk series was created when the College of Science became an independent UNT college in 2017. Its purpose is to highlight the outstanding scholarly work of COS faculty and the Tier One research happening at UNT, while bringing the community together to discuss scientific breakthroughs and learn about the building blocks of the world around us. S.M.A.R.T. stands for "Science & Mathematics Advancing Research & Technology." All College of Science faculty, staff, alumni, and students are encouraged to attend these free community events.