Postdoctoral Trainees

Garrett Scott Crosby, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow (Nov 2024- Present)

Dr. Crosby received his undergraduate degree (BS) in Biology in 2011 from South Dakota State University in Brookings, South Dakota. He then received a Master of Science (MS) in Anatomy from Des Moines University in Iowa in 2013. He taught at Des Moines Area Community College for 2 years as an adjunct instructor. Wanting to pursue a research track career, he received his Master of Science (MS) in Biomedical Sciences in the laboratory of Dr. Francesca Di Sole where he studied the trafficking of the Sodium/Hydrogen Exchanger 3 (NHE3) in CHO cells to better understand NHE3 regulation and plasma membrane expression. In 2017 he began his doctoral studies under the mentorship of Dr. Jil Tardiff at the University of Arizona, where he structurally resolved the disordered C-terminal tail of cardiac troponin T and studied the effects of known cardiomyopathic mutations on cardiac thin filament structure and regulation. In 2024, he began his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Sadayappan. Specifically, he focuses on the physiological roles of linker and loop motifs in the cardiac isoform of MyBP-C found in the middle domains, which have been implicated in modulating actomyosin interactions, as well as C-terminal domains, known to anchor cMyBP-C to the myosin thick filament. His long-term goal is to become an independent scientist using his expertise in sarcomere biology to discover new therapeutic targets to treat hypertrophic and dilated cardiomyopathy.

Kalyani Ananthamohan, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow (May 2023- Present)

Dr. Ananthamohan received her undergraduate degree (BSc) in Agriculture in 2007 from the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru College of Agriculture and Research Institute, Karaikal, Puducherry, India, and Master of Science (MSc) in Biotechnology from Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India in 2009. Her two-month summer training at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, Telangana, India, inspired her to pursue a career in research. She then qualified for the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Ph.D. studies under the mentorship of Nitish R Mahapatra, Ph.D. at IIT Madras (2009-2016). Her Ph.D. research was to understand the post-transcriptional regulation of hypertension candidate genes such as Renalase by micro RNAs during the development of essential hypertension. She then did post-doctoral training at the Department of Biotechnology under the mentorship of Shilpy Sharma, Ph.D., at Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, Maharashtra, India (2017-2019). Her work there was to define the role of pancreatic and skeletal muscle miRNAs as biomarkers for insulin insufficiency and insulin resistance mechanisms of type II diabetes. Most recently, she was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Nanobiotechnology at the PSG Institute of Advanced Studies, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India (2021-2023). Her lab focused on characterizing Renalase as a biomarker for early detection and a potential therapeutic target for chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology. She has extraordinary expertise in studying gene regulation and microRNAs in heart failure. Under the mentorship of Dr. Sadayappan, she has focused on defining the impact of MYBPC3 gene variants on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and developing gene therapy for treating distal arthrogryposis. Her long-term goal is to be a leader in cardiovascular biology at one of the leading academic institutes in the United States.

Taejeong Song, PhD

Assistant Professor at University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (2024-Present)
Research Scientist (2021-2024) & Postdoctoral fellow (2016-2021)

Dr, Taejeong (TJ) Song is originally from South Korea and received both his Master's (2009) and his PhD (2015) degrees in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education at the University of Texas at Austin. Since May 2016, he has been working in Dr. Sadayappan's lab for his postdoctoral training. He focuses on the physiological roles of skeletal muscle isoforms of MyBP-C in cardiovascular and skeletal muscle regulations. In addition, he has been studying the pathogenic mechanism of MYBPC3 gene mutation to cause hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. His postdoctoral studies were supported by the American Heart Association postdoctoral training fellowship (19POST34380448). Current studies have been supported by the American Heart Association Career Development Award (23CDA1046498).

Former Trainees :

Pooneh Nabavizadeh, MD

Postdoctoral Fellow (Jan 2023 – Jun 2025)

Dr. Nabavizadeh is a cardiology fellow in the physician-scientist training pathway (ABIM) at the University of Cincinnati. She did a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco in Dr. Matt Springer’s lab, where she worked on the effect of tobacco and marijuana aerosols on the endothelial function in rats. She joined Dr. Sadayappan’s lab as a research fellow in January 2023 and works on understanding the underlying mechanism of ventricular arrhythmias in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Her postdoctoral project is funded by the American Heart Association. Her goal is to pursue a career as a physician-scientist in the field of electrophysiology.

Lisa C. Green, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow (July 2022 – Jan 2024)

Dr. Green  received her Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, and Biochemical Pharmacology from the University of Cincinnati under the guidance of Dr. Michael Tranter in Jan 2022. In her graduate studies, she studied the role of an RNA-binding protein in modulating gene expression and pathological cardiac remodeling during heart failure. The NIH T32 training grant and the AHA Predoctoral Fellowship supported her Ph.D. studies. After graduation, she participated in a post-doctoral internship at a small biotech company that specialized in developing aptamers. For her postdoctoral training, Lisa joined under Dr. Sadayappan's mentorship in July 2022. She was working on determining the pathogenic mechanism of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and defining specific regions of the interaction between myosin-binding protein-C paralogs and myosin to improve contractility. The American Heart Association funded her research work. With Dr. Sadayappan, she learned molecular and cellular techniques, high throughput screening approaches, cardiac physiology, and cardiomyocyte function at single-cell levels. Currently, she is doing industrial postdoctoral training at Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati, OH.

Mohit Kumar, MS, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow (Aug 2020 - Apr 2022)

Dr. Kumar received his Master of Science in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry in August 2011 from Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, IL. After four years of research experience in academia, focused on cardiac physiology at Loyola University Chicago, Mohit joined the PhD program at University of Cincinnati in 2016 under the mentorship of Dr. Sadayappan in the Molecular, Cellular, and Biochemical Pharmacology program. His PhD studies were focused on determining the role of cardiac myosin binding protein-C (cMyBP-C) phosphorylation in calcium handling in the heart. His research study was funded by the American Heart Association predoctoral training fellowship (17PRE33630192). He has expertise in biophysical techniques measuring contractility at the sarcomere, muscle and cardiac level. He has published over 7 publications. His postdoctoral projects involve defining abnormal calcium handling with contractile dysfunction and activation of immune and inflammatory response post-myocardial infarction using both in vitro and in vivo models. His postdoctoral studies are funded by the American Heart Association postdoctoral training fellowship (834316).

Rohit Singh, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow (Feb 2018 - Nov 2021)

Dr. Singh is a native of India where he received his Bachelors (2009) and Masters of Science (2011) degrees in the field of Biotechnology from the University of Mumbai. He then received his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, under the guidance of Dr. Douglas D. Root. His dissertation study was focused on alteration in the stability of myosin sub-fragment 2 by binding of cardiac myosin binding protein-C. During his graduate studies, he received several awards and scholarships, including, for example, the Beth Baird Scholarship, Academic Achievement Scholarship, and Outstanding Teaching Assistant. To advance his skills and expertise in cardiac physiology, he joined the Sadayappan lab as a postdoctoral fellow in February 2018. His current studies will investigate the structure and function of cardiac myosin binding protein-C to regulate cardiac myosin and contractility in health and disease. His research studies are supported by the Amgen postdoctoral training fellowship.

Kamal Kassem, MD

Internal Medicine Resident, PGY2 (Jul 2018- Jun 2020)

Kamal Kassem  is in the physician-scientist track program. His previous work includes how PGE2 utilizes different receptors in the heart and mechanisms that ultimately decrease MMP expression and NVF migration. He studied the net effect of nitric oxide on urine volume via the NKCC2. Also, Kamal spent time after medical school studying the mechanism by which fructose leads to the development of salt-sensitive hypertension. He has recently won the Kidney Council New Investigator Award at the American Heart Association Council on Hypertension in San Francisco (2017) and Post- Doctoral Research Recognition at the APS-Renal Section in Chicago (2017).

Mohammed Arif, PhD

Postdoctoral fellow (Aug 2017- Mar 2021)

Dr. Arif received his Master’s degree (2006) from Jamia Hamdard University and his PhD (2014) from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Biochemistry from New Delhi, India. He worked two years as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Rafeeq Habeebahmed at the University of Cincinnati. In August 2017 he began working in the Sadayappan lab under the mentorship of Richard Becker, MD, and co-mentorship of Sakthivel Sadayappan, PhD, MBA, and focused on the epigenetic regulations in pediatric primary hypertension. The research project entitled “Study of Hypertension in Pediatrics -Adult Hypertension Onset in Youth (SHIP AHOY)” is funded by the American Heart Association under Strategically Focused Research Network mechanism to Dr. Becker at University of Cincinnati and Dr. Elaine Urbina at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Arif loves to spend time with his family and enjoys movies and video games in his spare time.

James McNamara, PhD

Postdoctoral fellow (Jun 2016 - May 2020)

Dr. McNamara received his Bachelor of Science and PhD in Physiology from the University of Sydney, Australia. He joined Dr. Sadayappan's lab in June 2016 to determine the underlying differences between the three different isoforms of myosin binding protein-C. He also investigated the potential for cardioprotection by cMyBP-C during ischemia reperfusion injury. His research also involved defining the role of cMyBP-C phosphorylation in modulating the super relaxation stage (SRX) of myosin, and also determining the structure and function role of slow myosin binding protein-C in the skeletal muscles. His research studies were supported by the American Heart Association postdoctoral training fellowship (17POST33630095). In his free time, he loves watching cricket, cooking and home brewing. Currently, he is at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, The Royal Children’s Hospital, Parkville, Victoria 3052 and Department of Physiology, School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia.

Shiv Kumar Viswanathan, PhD

Postdoctoral fellow (June 2016 - June 2019)

Dr. Viswanathan received his Ph.D. in Molecular and Developmental Biology and Cardiology from the University of Cincinnati in 2008 and worked as a Project Leader in the Translational Core Labs at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital for 6 years where he established the safety of two gene therapy vector products, which are now in Phase-I Clinical trials. In May 2016 he joined Dr. Sadayappan's lab as a postdoc and was working on genotype-phenotype correlation to study hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and to translate clinical research from bench to bedside. His postdoctoral studies were supported by the American Heart Association postdoctoral training fellowship (17POST33630157).

Jennifer Schwanekamp, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow (July 2017 - July 2018)

Dr. Schwanekamp received both her Master's (2012) and PhD (2017) from the Department of Molecular Genetics, Microbiology, and Biochemistry, University of Cincinnati in the laboratory of Dr. Jeffery D. Molkentin at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Her PhD work expanded our knowledge of periostin to an atherosclerotic disease model. She published ten articles including two first author publications in the top impact journals and received several awards such as Albert J. Ryan Fellowship and winner of the Heart Institute Research Retreat Graduate Student Oral Presentation, 2016. She joined the Sadayappan lab in July of 2017 under the NIH T32 training mechanism. As a postdoctoral trainee, she was working on understanding the molecular mechanism underlying hypertrophic cardiomyopathy resulting from mutations in MYBPC3. Currently, she is working as a research scientist at UES, Air Force, Dayton, OH.

Suresh Govindan, PhD

Postdoctoral fellow (February 2011-February 2016)

Dr. Govindan received his PhD in Microbiology in 2001 at Madurai Kamaraj University, India, and trained in cell and molecular biology in Taiwan. His work in Dr. Sadayappan’s lab was focused on the structural and regulatory functions of Cardiac Myosin Binding Protein-C to delineate the role(s) of cMyBP-C function in the heart. In particular, he focused on identifying upstream targets of cMyBP-C in order to discover novel kinases and proteases involved in the post-translational modification of cMyBP-C and its degradation, which will further define a role for cMyBP-C stability as a supportive therapy during post-ischemia- reperfusion (IR) injury. He was supported by the AHA post-doctoral training grant from Jan 01, 2013 (13POST14720024) until Dec 31, 2015. After a brief stay at Knight Cardiovascular Institute Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, he moved back to India and is now the Research Head of the N. Rama Varier Ayurveda Foundation, AVN Ayurveda Group, Madurai-625004, TamilNadu, India.

Diederik D. W. Kuster, PhD

Postdoctoral fellow (January 2012 - April 2014)

Dr. Kuster was awarded his doctoral degree in cardiovascular biology from Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He studied the molecular mechanisms underlying cardiac hypertrophy, focusing on hypertrophy after myocardial infarction (pathological) and after regular exercise training (physiological) in swine. He then worked with Dr. Jolanda van der Velden as a postdoctoral fellow at the VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Expanding his research, he focused on cMyBP-C phosphorylation in cardiac diseases (Kuster DW et al., 2012 J Muscle Res Cell Motil). To gain more insight into the functional role(s) of cMyBP-C, Dr. Kuster moved to the Sadayappan Lab at Loyola University Chicago, on January 3, 2012. In the first year, he studied the systematic release of cMyBP-C into the blood post- myocardial infarction. To accomplish this, he established a multiplex ELISA assay (Kuster DW et al., 2013; J Vis Exp) and finally confirmed that cMyBP-C is an early biomarker of myocardial infarction (Kuster DWD et al., 2014; Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol). During this time, he also completed his previous work, isolating a novel GSKβ3 phosphorylation site in human cMyBP-C and determining its role in sarcomere function (Kuster DW et al. 2013, Circ Res). His studies included understanding the disease mechanism of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy using a transgenic mouse model expressing a specific 25bp mutation that is inherited in 80 million people worldwide (Kuster DW and Sadayappan S, 2014; Pflugers Arch). To support his research studies, he received an American Heart Association postdoctoral fellowship (13POST17220009).

On March 01, 2014, he returned to the Netherlands where he took a faculty position to establish his research laboratory at the VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam.

Xiang Ji, PhD,

Postdoctoral fellow (January 2011 - December 2011)
Research Assistant (January 2012 - June 2013)

Dr. Ji received his PhD in Cell Biology from Bowling Green State University (BGSU), Bowling Green, Ohio, in May 2001. He then attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for his first postdoctoral training to determine the mechanism of precondition-induced cardioprotection from ischemia-reperfusion injury. In November 2002, he moved to Loyola University Chicago to work with, Dr. Steve L. Lipsius on the signaling mechanisms underlying -1- adrenergic receptor-mediated intracellular nitric oxide release in cardiomyocytes. He is credited with a number of publications with Dr. Lipsius, as a demonstration of his expertise in the area of calcium signaling and contractility. He has experience using adult cardiomyocytes from mouse, rat, rabbit and cat to study the calcium transients with a line-scan confocal microscope. He aimed to determine the specific effects of cMyBP-C degradation and its fragments on myosin kinetics, such as interaction with thick and thin filament proteins, calcium transients and contractility in vitro.

Saminathan Muthusamy, PhD

Postdoctoral fellow (January 2010 - April 2011)

In support of his graduate studies, Dr. Muthusamy was awarded the prestigious Council of Scientific & Industrial Research Fellowship awarded by the Government of India based on the CSIR National Eligibility Test. During the course of his graduate studies, he gained in- depth knowledge in protein purification and enzyme technology. In particular, he was involved in developing a new protocol to solve the aggregation of lipolytic enzymes seen in native PAGE. In the Sadayappan lab, his work was focused on the molecular mechanisms involved in cardiac myosin binding protein-C (cMyBP-C) phosphorylation-mediated cardioprotection during ischemia-reperfusion injury. At the Second Annual Myofiliament Meeting, which was held in Madison, WI, in May 2010. Dr. Muthusamy won an award for outstanding poster presentation on cMyBP-C proteolysis that contributes to reduced left ventricular function and plays a key role in the pathogenesis of heart failure. Currently, he is working as a Senior Scientist at Abbott in Chicago, IL.

For queries and opportunities, Please Contact :

Sakthivel Sadayappan, PhD, MBA, FAHA
Professor and Head
Department of Cellular & Molecular Medicine
Associate Director, Sarver Heart Center
Czarina M. & Humberto S. Lopez Chair for Excellence in Cardiovascular Research
University of Arizona College of Medicine
Tucson, AZ 85724-5217, USA

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