Physiology chair, biochem grad student earn awards

The American  Heart Association bestows a significant achievement award on UMMC's physiology chair, while a graduate student in the Department of Biochemistry garners national recognition for a research project.  

Physiology chair receives AHA's meritorious honor

Hall

The American Heart Association presented its Award of Meritorious Achievement to Dr. John Hall, Arthur C. Guyton Professor and Chair of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, at the annual AHA Volunteer Awards Luncheon in Dallas, Texas, June 24.

The award recognizes significant accomplishments or projects that affect the association at a national level.

The AHA recognized Hall for his four decades of effort in the research and treatment of cardiovascular disease and obesity.

In addition to chairing the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Hall also serves as director of the Mississippi Center for Obesity Research and the editor-in-chief of the AHA medical journal, Hypertension. Hypertension, obesity and heart disease are the primary subjects of Hall's current research efforts.

Hall and the faculty he manages are focused on linking obesity to abnormal kidney function and the development of high blood pressure.

Grad student's research project earns APS acclaim

Syad

Maryam Syad, a graduate student in the Department of Biochemistry, received a Research Recognition Award from the American Physiological Society Endocrinology and Metabolism Section for her project, "MicroRNA-21 Ablation Exacerbates Aldosterone-mediated Cardiac Injury, Remodeling and Dysfunction," which was presented at the 2015 Experimental Biology Meeting in Boston on March 31.

Syad is in the lab of Dr. Damian Romero, associate professor of biochemistry.