DOM Research Seminar Series

Thursday, December 14, 2017 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Event Location: 

UAHS 5403 & Baner-UMC-SC 3030

TOPIC: "Translational Research on Pulmonary Hypertension" and "Delays in Diagnosis of Coccidiodomycosis in Tucson"
SPEAKERS: Dr. Jason Yuan and Dr. Fariba Donovan

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Dr. Donovan joined the faculty of the UA Department of Medicine this past spring, returning to her research roots in medical mycology--the study of fungi and fungal infections. Previously, she was an assistant professor at Florida State University and an infectious diseases specialist with Intercoastal Medical Group. She earned her medical degree from Shiraz University in her native Iran and completed a medical residency at Tehran University Hospital before pursuing a postdoctoral research fellowship in dermatology and biochemistry at Gifu University in Gifu, Japan. Afterward, she became a research associate at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo, where she did a deep dive into research on coccidioidomycosis or Valley fever under Garry Cole, PhD. Later, she was a research associate in infectious diseases at the University of Cincinnati, in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she also completed residencies in family practice and internal medicine. She then did an infectious disease fellowship at the University of South Florida in Tampa and worked in private practice for three years after that. Dr. Donovan recently won a contract from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to continue work into research she presented this summer at the Seventh International Coccidioidomycosis Symposium at Stanford University. That research, "Delays in Diagnosis of Coccidioidomycosis in Tucson," is the subject of her presentation.

Dr. Yuan joined the UA faculty in 2014, when his division which focuses largely on advanced collaborative, multidisciplinary research was created to work across the UA Health Sciences colleges and related centers and institutes. He came from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was a professor of medicine and pharmacology, medicine vice chair for scholarly activities, and director of two research programs in the Institute for Personalized Respiratory Medicine and Center for Cardiovascular Research. Before that he held faculty positions at the University of California, San Diego, and University of Maryland in Baltimore. Dr. Yuan received his medical degree from Suzhou Medical College, Suzhou, China, where he also completed an internship at Suzhuo Medical College Hospital and Suzhou Third City Hospital, followed by a research fellowship in the Departments of Physiology and Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He earned his doctorate in a joint training program with the University of Maryland and Peking Union Medical College and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China. With numerous professional activities, memberships and awards to his name, Dr. Yuan is an elected member of the Association of American Physicians and American Society for Clinical Investigation, a fellow of the American Heart Association (AHA), American Physiological Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Thoracic Society. Among organizations he has served as an advisor and reviewer are the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers and National Science Foundation. His honors include the AHA Established Investigator Award, Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute Achievement Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship Award. He also is published widely with numerous books and book chapters and well over 200 scientific journal articles to his credit. This includes being co-editor of the Textbook of Pulmonary Vascular Disease (2011, Springer). Dr. Yuan noted that "studies on lung vascular pathobiology and pulmonary vascular disease are one of the major research focuses in our Division." Thus, the topic of his talk will be: "Translational Research on Pulmonary Hypertension."