Biomedical Sciences Department
Faculty

Department Chair/Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor
Specialties: Neuroimmune interactions during aging and neurodegenerative diseases
- colin.combs@UND.edu
- 701.777.4025
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W316

Associate Professor
Specialties: Natural and inducible immune responses to viruses and bacteria and to cancers
- david.s.bradley@UND.edu
- 701.777.2610
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W321

Professor
Specialties: Bacterial pathogenesis, host pathogen interactions, Lyme disease, relapsing fever,
spirochetes
- catherine.brissette@UND.edu
- 701.777.6412
- Neuroscience Building, Room 118A

Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor;Assistant Dean for Gender Equity
Specialties: Contributions of the endocrine system and metabolism to mechanisms of biological aging,
and age-related diseases
- holly.brown.borg@UND.edu
- 701.777.3949
- Neuroscience Building, Room 140

Associate Professor, Assistant Dean forMedical Curriculum
- patrick.carr@UND.edu
- 701.777.2576
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room E461

Associate Professor
Specialties: Endolysosome dysfunction contributions to neurological disorders including HIV-associated
neurocognitive disorders, Alzheimer’s diseases, and COVID 19- associated neurological
problems
- xuesong.chen@UND.edu
- 701.777.4034
- Neuroscience Building, Room 112

Associate Professor
Specialties: Chromatin, Epigenetics, Molecular biology, Breast cancer, Genomics
- archana.dhasarathy@UND.edu
- 701.777.4285
- Columbia Hall, Room W1733a

Associate Professor
Specialties: Medical education, Cellular & molecular biology, Extracellular matrix, Cell adhesion,
cytoskeleton
- jane.dunlevy@UND.edu
- 701.777.2575
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W430

Assistant Professor
Specialties: Skeletal muscle stem cells, Tissue regeneration, Aging, Cytoskeleton, Chromatin and
epigenetics
- susan.eliazer@UND.edu
- 701.777.2624
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W325

Associate Professor
Specialties: Regulation of the dopamine transporter via the post translational modifications, palmitoylation
and phosphorylation and their role in health and disease
- james.d.foster@UND.edu
- 701.777.3193
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W217

Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor
Specialties: Neuroscience, Neuropharmacology, Neurochemistry, Neurodegenerative diseases, Purines
- jonathan.geiger@UND.edu
- 701.777.2183
- Neuroscience Building, Room 110A

Associate Professor
Specialties: Stroke research, Brain ischemia, Hypoxia, Angiogenesis, Neurochemistry, Lipid and
purine metabolism, Mass spectrometry
- mikhail.golovko@UND.edu
- 701.777.2305
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W226

Associate Professor
Specialties: Vascular biology, Angiogenesis, Cellular signaling, A-kinase anchoring proteins, Microscopic
imaging
- bryon.grove@UND.edu
- 701.777.2579
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W230

Assistant Professor
Specialties: A&P Coordinator, Diversity & equity in STEM, Cell migration & adhesion, Cancer metastasis
- amanda.haage@UND.edu
- 701.777.5627
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, W228

Associate Professor/Director of Graduate Admissions
Specialties: Molecular, pharmacological, epigenetic,and computational analysis of the serotoninand
dopamine transporters and their role inhuman disease.
- keith.henry@UND.edu
- 701.777.2295
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W218

Associate Professor
Specialties: Bioinformatics, Systems pharmacology,Epigenomics, Diabetic peripheralneuropathy, literature
mining.
- jung.hur@UND.edu
- 701.777.6814
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W130

Professor
Specialties: Neurotransmitters, Neuropeptides,Synaptic transmission and plasticity, Ionchannels,
Learning and memory, Epilepsy,Anxiety, Schizophrenia, Alzheimer’sdisease, Autism,
Hippocampus, EntorhinalCortex, Interneuron, Patch-clamp,Electrophysiology.
- saobo.lei@UND.edu
- 701.777.4745
- Neuroscience Building, Room 148

Assistant Professor
Specialties: Respiratory syncytial virus, Ebola virus,host-pathogen interactions, Cytoskeletaldynamics,
Virus cell-to-cell spread, Ebolavirus RNA editing, Antiviral therapeutics.
- masfique.mehedi@UND.edu
- 701.777.2293
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, W219

Professor
- barry.milavetz@UND.edu
- 701.777.4280
- Twamley Hall Room, Room 100

Associate Professor
Specialties: Lipids biochemistry, Fatty acid bindingproteins, N-3 fatty acids, Brain lipidmetabolism,
Higher education,Faculty governance.
- eric.murphy@UND.edu
- 701.777.3450
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W224

Assistant Professor
Specialties: Effect of peripheral inflammation on brainfunction and behavior, Neuroinflammationvia
gut-immune-brain communications,Allergy and behavioral disorders.
- kumi.combs@UND.edu
- 701.777.2559
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences Room W419

Associate Professor
Specialties: Gene regulation, Epigenetics,Transcription, Genomics.
- sergei.nechaev@UND.edu
- 701.777.2566
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room 1733c

Associate Professor
Specialties: Microbiology, Bacterial pathogenesis, Rolesof type Ill secretion systems in pathogenesis.
- matthew.nilles@UND.edu
- 701.777.2750
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W322

Teaching Instructor
- monica.norby@UND.edu
- 701.777.2616
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W128

Assistant Professor
Specialties: HLA-Class II mediated immune responsesto infections.
- suba.nookala@UND.edu
- 701.777.1759
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W223

Associate Professor
Specialties: Pharmacology, Sympathetic nervoussystem, Innate immunity, G-protein coupled,Peptide
and toll-like receptors, Receptorcross-talk, signal transduction, Molecularmechanisms
of pharmacological action,Arrestins, G-protein coupled receptorkinases, Gq-G11 GTP-binding
proteins,MAP kinase signaling.
- james.porter@UND.edu
- 701.777.2296
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W220

Assistant Professor
Specialties: Cellular quiescence, dormancy, G0 andnon-dividing states; Epigenetics, Genomics,Epitranscriptomics;
Fission yeast biology,yeast and fungal genetics.
- benjamin.roche@und.edu
- 701.777.6101
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W323

Associate Professor / Graduate Director
Specialties: Alzheimers disease, Multiple sclerosis,Spinal cord injury, Neurodegeneration,Neuroinflammation,
Lipid metabolism,Brain energy metabolism, Lipid-mediatedsignal transduction, Acyl-CoA,
Arachidonicacid, Eicosanoids, Ether phospholipid,Plasmalogen, Phospholipases, Analyticallipid
techniques.
- thad.rosenberger@UND.edu
- 701.777.0591
- Neuroscience Building, Room 122

Associate Professor / Assc Dean, SMHS Faculty Affairs
Specialties: Anatomy, Neuroscience, Education,Curriculum innovation and programevaluation, Assessment
of student learning,Faculty development.
- 701.777.2570
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room E463

Associate Professor
Specialties: Proteomics, Bio-markers, Discipline-basededucation research.
- john.shabb@UND.edu
- 701.777.4946
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W229

Sarah Sletten, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Specialties: Active learning, Flipped Classrooms,Problem-based learning, Girls in STEM,K-12 STEM
professional development.
- sarah.sletten@und.edu
- 701.777.4967
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W330

Assistant Professor
Specialties: Immunology, Mucosal immunology, Gutimmunology, Mucosal inflammationmicrobiome, Infectious
diseases,Parasitology host-pathogen interaction,Vaccine development.
- shahram.solaymani@UND.edu
- 701.777.6702
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Rm W220

Assistant Professor
Specialties: Epigenetics and chromatin regulation incancer, Breast cancer reprogramming,Biochemistry,
Cell biology, Genomics,Genome editing, cell free DNA.
- motoki.takaku@und.edu
- 701.777.2568
- Columbia Hall, RM 1744

Associate Professor
Specialties: Human anatomical variation: a cadaverdissection-based study of human structure.
- chernet.tessema@UND.edu
- 701.777.4985
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W125

Professor
Specialties: Epigenetics in normal development andpathogenesis, Chromatin regulation,Role of poly
(ADP-ribose) metabolism intranscription regulation and oncogenesis,PARP-1 inhibitors
in oncology, Drosophilaand mammalian model organisms.
- alexei.tulin@UND.edu
- 701.777.4922
- Columbia Hall, Room 1733B

Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor
Specialties: Dopamine transporter structure and function,Molecular mechanisms of cocaine andamphetamine,
Protein post-translationalmodifications, Dopaminergic disorders.
- roxanne.vaughan@UND.edu
- 701.777.3419
- School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Room W216

Associate Professor
Specialties: Neural regeneration, Neuron-gliainteractions, Neuroinflammation, CNSresponse to injury.
- john.watt@UND.edu
- 701.777.6225
- Neuroscience Building, Room 124
Research Assistant Professors

Research Assistant Professor
Specialties: Host-pathogen interactions duringLyme borreliosis; Neuroborreliosis;Meningeal immunity.
- timothy.casselli@und.edu
- 701.777.6414

Research Assistant Professor
Specialties: Neurochemistry, Neuroscience,Neuropharmacology, andNeurodegenerative diseases.
- peter.halcrow@und.edu
- 701.777.0919

- santhosh.mukundan@UND.edu
- 701.777.6702

Research Assistant Professor
- drew.seeger@UND.edu
- 701.777.2096
Joint/Adjunct Faculty

Kate J. (Claycombe) Larson, Ph.D.
Acting Research Leader; USDA-ARS-PA, Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center
- kate.Larson@ars.usda.gov
- 701.795.8298

Research Assistant Professor, Dean's Office Med; Department of Biomedical Sciences

Kim Hammer, Ph.D.
Research & Development Director, Fargo VA Health Care System; Adjunct Assistant Professor,
Department fo Biomedical Sciences
- kimberly.hammer@va.gov
- 701.239.3700

Bo Liang, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, School of Electrical Engineering &
Computer Science, University of North Dakota

David S. Terman, MD
Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at University of Alabama School of
Medicine