The Pulse, October 26, 2018

Dr. Jian-Ping Jin and Dr. Charles Brenner, our final two candidates for the Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS) will be on campus next week for interviews.  Following are brief bios for each candidate as well as information regarding their All-Campus Presentations on Tuesday, October 30^th and Wednesday, October 31^st respectively. 

Jian-Ping (JP) Jin, MD, PhD

Dr. Jin is currently the Chair of the Department of Physiology at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan where he has worked for the past nine years and was awarded with a major research endowment in 2015. Dr. Jin was elected to the Academy of Scholars of Wayne State University in 2016 as a Lifetime Member. As a tenured professor with complete training in clinical medicine, a MSc in immunology and a PhD in molecular and cellular biology, he teaches regularly at undergraduate, graduate and professional levels and has lectured at many U.S. and international venues. 

As an established researcher with expertise in protein structure-function relationship, mechanoregulation of cell functions, muscle contractility, myopathies, heart failure, molecular engineering and biotechnologies, Dr. Jin has published more than 170 research papers, review articles, and book chapters. He was the sole editor of two troponin books, one in basic science research and the other in clinical diagnosis, published in 2013 and 2014. His research has been continuously funded since the establishment of his own laboratory in 1993. Currently, he is the Principal Investigator of three active NIH R01 grants and Principal Investigator/Program Director of an NIH T32 predoctoral training grant that has recently received a fundable score of 20 for 5 more years (2019-2023).

Dr. Jin is scheduled to be on campus Monday, October 29^th & Tuesday, October 30^th.  Please mark your calendar to attend his “All-Campus Presentation” on Tuesday, October 30^th from Noon to 1pm in LIB 110.

Charles Brenner, PhD

Charles Brenner is a product of public K-12 schooling in New England and a 1983 graduate of Wesleyan who began his career by working in two San Francisco Bay Area biotech companies before earning his PhD with Robert Fuller at Stanford and doing a post-doctoral fellowship with Gregory Petsko at Brandeis. Dr. Brenner launched his independent laboratory at Jefferson in 1996, moving to Dartmouth in 2003, where he served as full professor of Genetics and of Biochemistry and as Associate Director for Basic Sciences at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center.

Dr. Brenner is known for multiple contributions to biochemistry and molecular biology and in particular for his discovery of nicotinamide riboside (NR) as a vitamin and his development of targeted quantitative NAD metabolomics, which have revealed conditions of metabolic stress that are addressable by NR. In addition to his own scholarly contributions, which have been developed into significant clinical and commercial applications,

Dr. Brenner is an academic leader who has recruited, retained and helped mentor dozens of faculty members not only in his home department of Biochemistry, which he has led at the University of Iowa since 2009, but also in the 5-college Obesity Research and Education Initiative, which he developed and co-directs. Dr. Brenner has also written and lectured broadly on undergraduate science curricular redesign and medical education.

Dr. Brenner is scheduled to be on campus Wednesday, October 31^st & Thursday, November 1^st.  Please mark your calendar to attend his “All-Campus Presentation” on Wednesday, October 31^st from Noon to 1pm in LIB 110.

We will be sending out a brief survey after each of their visits and I encourage everyone to participate as your input and feedback is very important in this decision.

If you have any questions regarding Dr. Jin or Dr. Brenner and/or any of the other Deans’ searches, please do not hesitate to contact me at Provost@unthsc.edu.