Behrmann awarded NIH Predoctoral Fellowship Award

Andrew Behrmann, a current student in the University of Missouri School of Medicine Tom and Anne Smith MD-PhD Program, was recently awarded a Predoctoral Fellowship Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

A Belleville, Illinois native, Behrmann is training in the Translational Biosciences Graduate Program’s Integrative Physiology track within the Department of Medical Pharmacology and Physiology, with an overall goal of becoming a surgeon-scientist. His current research efforts aim to better understand how cardiac muscle cells function in various disease states.

Behrmann’s NIH predoctoral fellowship will specifically research the pathological upregulation of the Transient Receptor Potential Receptor Vanilloid 4 (TRPV4) ion channel in heart muscle cells. He will further examine how excessive activation of TRPV4 in pulmonary hypertension leads to cardiac arrhythmias, which are a major cause of morbidity and morality in pulmonary hypertension patients.

Joining Behrmann for this graduate training grant includes Mizzou School of Medicine faculty mentors Timothy Domeier, PhD, Charles E. Norton III, PhD, Mei Methawasin, MD, PhD, Lindsey Saint, MD, Luis Polo-Parada, PhD, and Scott Zawieja, PhD.

External members of his training committee include Pirooz Eghtesady, Md, PhD, pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon at Washington University - St. Louis, and Maike Krenz, MD, associate professor in Pathobiology and Diagnostic Investigation at Michigan State University.