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Lab Directory

Subhash C. Pandey PhD

  • Joseph A. Flaherty MD, Endowed Professor of Psychiatry
  • Director, Center for Alcohol Research in Epigenetics
  • Professor of Biochemistry in Psychiatry
  • Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology
  • Director, Neuroscience Alcoholism Research
  • Senior VA Career Research Scientist
  • Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, University of Illinois Chicago
Dr. Subhash Pandey is a nationally and internationally well-known neuroscientist in the alcohol addiction field and has contributed significantly towards a better understanding of the neurobiology of alcoholism. Two striking features of alcohol addiction are the rapid onset of tolerance to the acute effects of alcohol and the development of ethanol withdrawal symptoms after cessation of protracted ethanol consumption.

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Subash C. Pandey

James Auta PhD, PharmD, MBA

  • Associate Professor

Associate Professor at UIC. Dr. Auta has extensive experience on the behavioral, molecular and neuropharmacology of GABAergic, glutamatergic and nicotinic receptors neurotransmission; and more recently, the neuropharmacology and pathology of the cerebellum during acute and chronic alcohol exposure.

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James Auta

Dulal K. Bhaumik PhD

  • Professor of Psychiatry, Biostatistics and Bioengineering
  • Director, Biostatistical Research Center
Dulal is a Professor of Psychiatry, Biostatistics and Bioengineering at the University of Illinois Chicago. He received his BS in Statistics from Calcutta University, his MS in Statistics from the Indian Statistical Institute, and his PhD in the same field from the University of Maryland. Before joining UIC, he served as a Professor of Statistics in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at University of South Alabama.

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Dulal K. Bhaumik

Mark Brodie PhD

  • Professor
  • Department of Physiology & Biophysics
  • Department of Psychiatry
  • Director: Master of Science in Medical Physiology Program
Dr. Brodie has studied the effects of acute and chronic alcohol on neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) for many years, and his work has helped elucidate how alcohol acts to increase dopamine neurotransmission in the brain. In conjunction with the CARE, Dr. Brodie is interested in examining epigenetic factors in the VTA that are altered by chronic alcohol exposure and produce sustained changes in the physiology of the VTA during withdrawal. The goal of this work is to understand the neurobiological basis of alcohol effects on the reward and reinforcement systems of the brain.

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Mark Brodie

Marc S. Atkins PhD

  • Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology
  • University of Illinois Chicago
Dr. Atkins is a licensed clinical psychologist and Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology and past Director of the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). He developed and led the internship in clinical psychology for the Department of Psychiatry for two decades and has mentored numerous graduate students and postdoctoral fellows on career development awards and postdoctoral fellowships. He currently directs the Community Engagement and Collaboration core for UIC’s Center for Clinical and Translational Science. He is the recipient of numerous grants from the NIMH and private foundations examining new models for mental health practice in urban communities to address long-standing disparities in mental health care for children and families living in high poverty urban communities. He currently is Co-PI with Dr. Tara Mehta on a grant from the NIMH studying community health worker navigation into mental health services for urban children and families. He is active in public policy, including as a consultant to the Chicago Public Schools, the Illinois Division of Mental Health, and the Illinois State Board of Education on guidelines for school and community based mental health programs and practices, and to Chief Judge Timothy Evans of the Cook County Circuit Court on behavioral health programming for Restorative Justice Courts.

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Marc S. Atkins

Emma Childs PhD

  • Associate Professor of Psychiatry
  • Department of Psychiatry
  • University of Illinois Chicago
Dr. Emma Childs is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, and Director of The Human Addiction Psychopharmacology laboratory. Dr Childs’ research is dedicated to improving our understanding of addictive disorders. One of her primary areas of interest is studying how powerful associations are formed between abused drugs and cues (i.e., the people, places and paraphernalia) surrounding drug use.

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Emma Childs

Douglas Feinstein PhD

  • Research Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, UIC
  • Research Career Scientist, Jesse Brown VA Medical Center
Doug Feinstein, Ph.D. (Professor, Anesthesiology; Bioengineering; Cell Biology and Anatomy; Biopharmaceutical Science) studies novel approaches to reduce damage and inflammation in neurodegenerative diseases. Studies include analysis of disease progression in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and multiple sclerosis (MS), in vitro studies using primary cultures of neurons and glial cells from wild type and transgenic mice, and analysis of the molecular events involved.

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Elizabeth Glover PhD

  • Assistant Professor
  • Director of the CARE Behavior Core
  • Department of Psychiatry, UIC
Dr. Glover completed her BS in Zoology at Arizona State University in 2001 and subsequently worked as a research assistant studying nonhuman primate behavior at the Southwest National Primate Research Center in San Antonio, TX. She earned her PhD in Neuroscience in 2012 from Wake Forest University School of Medicine where she investigated the effects of chronic alcohol self-administration on the serotonin system in nonhuman primates under the mentorship of Dr. David Friedman.

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Elizabeth Glover

Dennis R. Grayson PhD

  • Professor of Molecular Neuroscience
  • Department of Psychiatry
  • University of Illinois Chicago
Dr. Grayson is interested in epigenetic mechanisms associated with psychiatric disease. We study DNA methylation and other repressive epigenetic marks. In addition, we are currently investigating abnormal patterns of gene expression following chronic alcohol use and withdrawal. The overall goals are to identify new drug targets in each paradigm to establish new therapeutic approaches for treatment. He graduated from Michigan State University with a BS in Biochemistry and obtained the PhD in Biochemistry from Wayne State School of Medicine.

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Dennis R. Grayson

Alessandro Guidotti MD

  • Scientific Director, Psychiatric Institute
  • Distinguished Professor
Alessandro Guidotti is the Scientific Director of the Psychiatric Institute, and Professor of Psychiatry and Biochemistry at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois Chicago. Prof. Guidotti’s outstanding research record ranges from the report that benzodiazepines, allosterically acting at specific GABAa receptor sites, enhance GABA’s gating of Cl channels dating back to the 1970′s up to his recent pioneer studies on the role of reelin in human cortex and on demethylation of promoters expressed in GABAergic neurons as a potential mechanism of antipsychotic action.

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Alessandro Guidotti

Katherine McMurray PhD

  • Assistant Professor
  • Department of Psychiatry, UIC
Dr. McMurray’s research interests focus on understanding the neurobiology of comorbid neuropsychiatric disorders, such as alcohol use disorders, panic disorder, and PTSD, with the goal of more effectively treating and diagnosing these disorders. Dr. McMurray received a BA in Anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She then completed her doctoral work with Dr. Abraham Palmer at the University of Chicago where she investigated the role of the gene Glo1 in models of alcohol use disorders, anxiety, and depression, and evaluated the therapeutic efficacy of targeting GLO1 using small molecule inhibitors. Dr. McMurray then completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Renu Sah at the University of Cincinnati where she received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Fellowship from NIMH to investigate neurocircuitry underlying panic and PTSD vulnerability.

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Katherine McMurray

Mark Rasenick PhD

  • Distinguished Professor of Physiology & Biophysics and Psychiatry
  • Director, Biomedical Neuroscience Training Program
  • Research Career Scientist, Jesse Brown VAMC
  • University of Illinois Chicago College of Medicine

Dr. Rasenick’s work has focused on G protein signaling in the nervous system and the relationship of neurotransmitter activation to rapid modification of the cytoskeleton.  He has been particularly interested in how G proteins and the cytoskeleton work in concert to modify synaptic shape and to form a molecular basis for depression and the action of antidepressant drugs.

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Mark Rasenick

Rajiv P. Sharma MD

  • Research Professor of Psychiatry, Anatomy and Cell Biology, and Neuroscience
  • Director of the Psychosis Program
Dr. Rajiv P. Sharma is a Research Professor of Psychiatry. Over the past 30 years, he has examined multiple aspects of the schizophrenia illness, including clinical presentations, biochemical studies (hormones, immune molecules, monoamine metabolites, neuropeptides), as well as molecular studies in living subjects, postmortem brain samples, and cell studies. His research is funded by NIH. He is currently focusing on the dissection of epigenetic gene regulation in schizophrenia, pertaining to immune function, cognition, treatment response.

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Rajiv Sharma

Huaibo Zhang MD, PhD

  • Research Assistant Professor
  • Department of Psychiatry
  • University of Illinois Chicago
Dr. Huaibo Zhang has been working in the field of epigenetics of the alcoholism using different animal models. He is actively involved in investigating different epigenetic mechanisms (e.g. histone acetylation/deacetylation, DNA methylation/demethylation) and synaptic plasticity in the development of alcohol dependence and alcoholism, which are operative in the impact of adolescent drinking on alcohol abuse at adolescent hood as well as adulthood.

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Huaibo Zhang

Mark Maienschein-Cline PhD

  • Director, Research Informatics Core & Center for Alcohol Research in Epigenetics, CARE
  • University of Illinois Chicago
Mark Maienschein-Cline

Christopher J. Fields PhD

  • Associate Director for HPCBio
  • Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Christopher J. Fields

Alvaro Hernandez PhD

  • Director, High-Throughput Sequencing and Genotyping Unit
  • Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Alvaro Hernandez

Jenny Drnevich Zadeh PhD

  • Functional Genomics Bioinformatics Specialist
  • Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Jenny Drnevich Zadeh