MCW Cardiovascular Center Appoints Postdoctoral Fellows

The Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) Cardiovascular Center has appointed Ryan Adam, PhD; Joshua Nord, PhD, and Michael Flinn, PhD, as postdoctoral trainees on the Cardiovascular Center’s National Institutes of Health T32 postdoctoral training program.

Building on excellence in cardiovascular research, the Cardiovascular Center’s T32 postdoctoral training program is funded by a $1.6 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute that provides support for six postdoctoral training slots each year. The grant provides up to three years of training for appointed postdoctoral fellows in the Cardiovascular Center with an MD, PhD, PharmD or DO degree. Complementary support for trainees is provided by a grant given to the Cardiovascular Center by the A. O. Smith Foundation for the A. O. Smith Fellowship Scholars Program designed to support talented cardiovascular researchers and physicians to overcome barriers to launching and sustaining a successful research career.

The ultimate goal of this training program is to train the next generation of cardiovascular scientists by incorporating broad-based, personalized, supportive and rigorous training opportunities.

Dr. Ryan J. Adam earned his Bachelor of Science (2010), Master of Science (2012), and PhD (2017) in biomedical engineering at the University of Iowa. In graduate school, he studied pathogenic mechanisms of cystic fibrosis lung disease under the mentorship of David A. Stoltz, MD, PhD. Upon graduation, Dr. Adam completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, where he studied interactions between the nervous and cardiovascular systems in the setting of chronic heart failure in the lab of Hanjun Wang, MD. Dr. Adam joined MCW in the fall of 2019 under the primary mentorship of Alison J. Kriegel, PhD, associate professor of physiology. Dr. Kriegel is a member of the Cardiovascular Center’s Signature Program in Hypertension, has won numerous teaching and mentoring awards and in 2019 was recognized as the Cardiovascular Center’s Cullen Scholar. Dr. Adam’s T32 project will investigate mechanisms underpinning differential progression of chronic kidney disease between women and men.

Dr. Michael A. Flinn received his Bachelor of Science (2009) and Master of Science (2011) in biological science from Northern Illinois University. He earned a PhD in cell and developmental biology from MCW in 2018 under the mentorship of Brian Link, PhD, studying cardiac development in zebrafish. As a postdoctoral fellow, his primary mentor is Caitlin O’Meara, PhD, assistant professor of physiology at MCW and co-leader of the Cardiovascular Center’s Cardiac Biology and Heart Failure Signature Program. Dr. Flinn’s T32 project focuses on the formation of scar tissue that often develops after a heart attack, which can eventually lead to heart failure, a condition affecting 6.5 million adults nationwide. Specifically, he studies the Hippo-Yap pathway in cardiac myofibroblast activation, fibrosis and coordination of the immune response following ischemic injury.

Dr. Joshua A. Nord studied biomedical sciences at Concordia University and received his Bachelor of Science in 2011. He spent two years in the lab of Cardiovascular Center member Allison Ebert, PhD, researching neurodegenerative disease, before earning a PhD from MCW in cell and developmental biology in 2019 under the mentorship of Lisa Cirillo, PhD. Dr. Nord’s primary mentor Brian Smith, PhD is an assistant professor of biochemistry at MCW and member of the Cardiovascular Center’s Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology Signature Program. As a first-generation college graduate, Dr. Nord’s doctoral work focused on the transcriptional control of liver development. During his postdoctoral training, he is working to uncover how the specific BET bromodomains suppress the development and progression of Type 1 diabetes. As diabetes is associated with an increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, Dr. Nord’s research will provide a better understanding of islet inflammation and its relationship to diabetes.

These new appointees join three other A.O. Smith Scholars in the Cardiovascular Center’s T32 postdoctoral training program: Jing Liu, PhD; Jennifer Stancill, PhD, and Christine Klemens, PhD. Alumni of this program include Moua Yang, PhD, postdoctoral fellow at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, and Pablo Nakagawa, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the MCW Department of Physiology.

Ivor Benjamin, MD, professor of medicine and director of the Cardiovascular Center at MCW, and David Gutterman, MD, Northwestern Mutual Professor of Cardiology and senior associate director of the Cardiovascular Center at MCW, are co-directors of the program. Mary Sorci-Thomas, PhD, professor of medicine and associate director of the Cardiovascular Center, is associate director.

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About the Medical College of Wisconsin

With a history dating back to 1893, The Medical College of Wisconsin is dedicated to leadership and excellence in education, patient care, research and community engagement. More than 1,200 students are enrolled in MCW’s medical school and graduate school programs in Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Central Wisconsin. MCW’s School of Pharmacy opened in 2017. A major national research center, MCW is the largest research institution in the Milwaukee metro area and second largest in Wisconsin. In FY2016, faculty received more than $184 million in external support for research, teaching, training and related purposes. This total includes highly competitive research and training awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Annually, MCW faculty direct or collaborate on more than 3,100 research studies, including clinical trials. Additionally, more than 1,500 physicians provide care in virtually every specialty of medicine for more than 525,000 patients annually.

About the Cardiovascular Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin

The Cardiovascular Center, founded in 1992 at the Medical College of Wisconsin, serves more than 160 members from 26 departments and institutes on the Milwaukee Regional Medical Campus and surrounding community as it fulfills its mission to improve cardiovascular health in southeast Wisconsin and beyond through cutting-edge research, cost-efficient and high-quality healthcare delivery, rigorous training of the next generation of diverse cardiovascular scientists, and engaging the community to eliminate disparities in health outcomes. Directed by Ivor Benjamin, MD, over 32,000 square feet of space is dedicated to the center’s laboratories, offices, conference rooms, equipment cores and staff who promote its mission by maintenance of core resources, acquisition and distribution of funds for meritorious cardiovascular research, education of its members, trainees and staff and interaction with the community to understand its needs and alleviate the burden of disease in the heart and blood vessels.