Ortlund Lab News | Emory School of Medicine

November 2022, New Publication. Congratulations to Prof. Xu Liu and Prof. Eric Ortlund on their recent publication in Nature Communications.
October 2022, New Publication. Congratulations to Prof. Anamika Patel, Prof. Filipp Frank, and Prof. Eric Ortlund on their recent publication in Science Advances.
October 2022, Ph.D. Defense. Congratulations to Dr. Sam Druzak on defending his Ph.D. thesis, “Differential regulation of peroxisome proliferator activating receptors (PPARs) via host and microbial derived processes”.
October 2022, New Lab Member. The Ortlund Lab welcomes new postdoc Dr. Alasdair Keith to the team.
August 2022, New Publication. Congratulations to Prof. Filipp Frank, Meredith Keen, Prof. Xu Liu, Prof. Anamika Patel, M.L. Cato, and Prof. Eric Ortlund on their recent publication in Cell.
July 2022, New Lab Member. The Ortlund Lab welcomes new Research Technician Rickta Mallick to the team.
June 2022, New Publication. Congratulations to André Cuevas, Dr. Matt Tillman, and Prof. Eric Ortlund on their recent publication in Nature Cell Biology.
June 2022, Research Highlight: Dr. Eric Ortlund is a principal investigator in the National Institutes of Health-funded Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC), featured on the Today Show: Today.com
May 2022, Research Highlight. Ortlund lab research on COVID tests highlighted in Emory News Center.
May 2022, New Publication. Congratulations to Dr. Kristal Maner-Smith and Prof. Eric Ortlund on their recent publication in J Med Chem.
May 2022, New Publication. Congratulations to M. L. Cato, Racheal Spurlin, Prof. Anamika Patel, Prof. Denise Okafor, Prof. Filipp Frank, Dr. Emma D’Agostino, and Prof. Eric Ortlund on their recent publication in J Med Chem.
April 2022, New Award. Graduate Student Michael “Cato” Lee Received the John B. Lyon Memorial Scholarship.
March 2022, Article Highlight. Congratulations to Dr. Ortlund for his highlight in NYT Article for his COVID test research.
March 2022, New Publication. Congratulations to Dr. Suzanne Mays, Dr. Emma D’Agostino, Dr. Elizabeth Millings, Prof. Denise Okafor, Prof. Anamika Patel, M.L. Cato, and Prof. Eric Ortlund on their recent publication in Cell Chem Bio.
November 2021, New Publication. Congratulations to the Ortlund Lab for their publication, "TCA cycle remodeling drives proinflammatory signaling in humans with pulmonary tuberculosis." in PLoS Pathology.
November 2021, New Lab Member. The Ortlund Lab welcomes new postdoc Zhenxin Hou, PhD to the team.
September 2021, New Publication. Congratulations to Filip Frank, Xu Liu and Eric Ortlund for their publication, "Structural insights into glucocorticoid receptor function," in Biochem Soc Trans.
August 2021, New Publication. Congratulations to the Ortlund lab for their publication, "Upregulation of Thioesterase Superfamily Member 2 in skeletal muscle promotes hepatic steatosis and insulin resistance," in Hepatology.
July 2021, New Publication. Congratulations to Dr. Filipp Frank, Dr. Xu Liu, and Prof. Ortlund on their recent publication in PNAS, “Glucocorticoid receptor condensates link DNA-dependent receptor dimerization and transcriptional transactivation.”
July 2021, New Publication. Congratulations to Dr. Xu Liu, Dr. Emily Weikum, and Prof. Ortlund on their publication in Nucleic Acids Research titled, "Structural basis for glucocorticoid receptor recognition of both unmodified and methylated binding sites, precursors of a modern recognition element."
July 2021, New Award: Instructor Dr. Xu Liu Receives the American Heart Association Career Development Award
January 2021, New Publication. Congratulations to the Ortlund Lab for their publication in Nat Chem Biol. titled, "Chemical systems biology reveals mechanisms of glucocorticoid receptor signaling".
January 2021, New Lab Member. New BCDB Graduate Student, André Cuevas, joins the lab.
January 2021, New Award. Congratulations to the Ortlund Lab on being awarded a Lilly Research Award Program (LRAP) grant from Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals to pursue the structure and function of LRH-1 modulators.
January 2021, New Award. Congratulations to the Xu Liu on being awarded a grant from the Foundation to Eradicate Duchenne’s. Award title: "Vamorolone and DMD heart: Elucidating the molecular mechanism of action as a mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist".
December 2020, New Publication. Congratulations to the Ortlund Lab for their publication in Sci Rep titled, "Enantiomer-specific activities of an LRH1 and SF-1 dual agonist".
November 2020, New Publication. Congratulations to the Ortlund Lab for their publication in J. Biol Chem titled, "Human genetic variants disrupt RGS14 nuclear shuttling and regulation of LTP in hippocampal neurons".
October 2020, New Publication. Congratulations to the Ortlund Lab for their publication in Nat Commun titled, "The Rho-GEF PIX-1 directs assembly or stability of lateral attachment structures between muscle cells.
August 2020, New Publication. Congratulations to the Ortlund Lab for their publication in Bioorg Med Chem Letter titled, "Development of a new class of liver receptor homolog-1 (LRH-1) agonists by photoredox conjugate addition". Five people from the lab contributed to this paper: Lee Cato, Emma D'agostino, Anamika Patel, Suzanne Mays (alum), and Dr. Ortlund.
July 2020, New Publication. Congratulations to the Ortlund Lab for their article in Cell Reports, titled, "The lncRNA Growth Arrest Specific 5 Regulates Cell Survival via Distinct Structural Modules with Independent Functions".
July 2020, New Publication. Congratulations to the Ortlund Lab for their article in Vaccines, titled, "Alterations in the Human Plasma Lipidome in Response to Tularemia Vaccination".
June 2020, New Research Study. Dr. Ortlund and GA Tech researchers from the Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium have been chosen to participate in a six-year NIH-funded program to recruit thousands of participants to reveal impact of physical exercise at the molecular level.

April 2020, Top Downloaded Paper. Congratulations to Dr. Eric Ortlund whose paper has been recognized as one of the most read papers in Protein Science.
April 2020, Successful PhD Defense. Matthew Tillman, PhD, successfully defended his thesis and will be joining Dr. Rawls’ Lab at Duke University, fall 2020.
January 2020, New Publication. The lab published a paper titled, "Rewiring Ancient Residue Interaction Networks Drove the Evolution of Specificity in Steroid Receptors," in Structure. Denise Okafor is first author.
August 2019, Congratulations! Congratulations to postdoctoral fellow Dr. Denise Okafor on accepting a position as an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Pennsylvania State University! We are so proud of you, Denise!
May 2019, New Grant. Congratulations to Filipp Frank and Dr. Ortlund on receiving a Winship Invest$ Grant!
May 2019, Promotion. Congratulations to Dr. Ortlund on being promoted to Professor with Tenure, effective September 1, 2019!
January 2019, New Travel Award. Congratulations to Emma D'Agostino on being invited to attend the 2019 RapiData course at SLAC (Stanford University); Emma also received a travel award for this course.
January 2019, Invited Presentation. Congraultions to Filipp Frank on being invited to give a talk at the 2019 Keystone Symposium on RNA-Protein Interactions/Long Non-Coding RNAs
January 2019, Poster Presentation. Congraultions to Cato on presenting a poster at the 2019 DSAC Symposium.
January 2019, Award. Congraultions to Emma D'Agostino on earning 1st place in the Oral Presentation category at the 2019 DSAC Symposium.
January 2019, Award. Congraultions to Matt Tillman on earning 2nd place in the Oral Presentation category at the 2019 DSAC Symposium.
December 2018, New Travel Award. Congratulations to Emma D'Agostino on earning a travel award to present a poster at the 2019 ASBMB Conference in Orlando, Florida.
November 2018, Ph.D. Defense. Congratulations to Suzanne G. Mays on defending her Ph.D. Thesis! Dr. Mays has accepted the Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship Award to study at the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, Spain.
September 2018, New Lab Member. Welcome to David Hercules, the new Research Specialist in the Ortlund Lab.
July 2018, Masters Defense. Congratulations to Regan Esposito on defending her Masters Thesis!
July 2018, Lab Wedding. Congratulations to M. Lee Cato on getting married to his wife, Sarah.
May 2018, New Graduate Students. Welcome to M. Lee Cato (BCDB graduate program) and Sam Druzak (MSP graduate program), the newest members of the Ortlund Lab.
May 2018, New Travel Award. Congratulations to Dr. Denise Okafor who has been selected as a recipient of the Hans Neurath Outstanding Promise Travel Award to attend the 32^nd Annual Symposium of The Protein Society. Sponsored by the Hans Neurath Foundation, the award is of their highest prestige and includes recognition during the plenary session on July 11^th.
May 2018, New Grant. Dr. Denise Okafor was awarded a Burroughs Wellcome Fund “Career Award at the Scientific Interface (CASI)” grant. This award provides $500,000 over five years to bridge advanced postdoctoral training and the first three years of faculty service. The BWF CASI program supports exciting research careers at the interface between the physical/ computational sciences and the biological sciences. Denise is in Dr. Eric Ortlund’s lab and will use molecular dynamics to investigate how evolution shaped the allosteric networks within steroid hormone receptors to generate new ligand specificity. Congrats Denise!
May 2018, New Lab Baby! Jen Colucci and her husband welcomed a baby boy on May 9th, 2018. Welcome to the lab, Franco Althoff!
April 2018, Award. Congratulations to Suzanne Mays for winning the Molecular and Systems Pharmacology Program Scholar of the Year!
April 2018, Award. Congratulations to Suzanne Mays for winning the "Best Poster" award at the 2018 SER-CAT Conference.
April 2018, New Grant. Congratulations to Dr. Anna Ivanaova (Emory Integrated Lipidomics Core) on having her project “Serum Lipidomics of Pregnant African American Women Exposed to Environmental Toxicants” selected for funding as part of the HERCULES Center’s Pilot Project Core!
March 2018, New Grant. Congratulations to Dr. Denise Okafor on being awarded The Ford Foundation Postdoctoral fellowship!
March 2018, New Grant. Congratulations to Dr. Eric Ortlund and Dr. Denise Okafor on being awarded an NIH R01 Diversity Supplement Grant!
March 2018, Fellowship Finalist. Congraultions to Dr. Denise Okafor on being selected as a finalist for The Burroughs Wellcome fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface (CASI)!
January 2018, Travel Awards. Congratulations to Xu Liu and Matt Tillman, who were both awarded Travel Awards to attend the 2018 ASBMB Annual Meeting in San Diego!
January 2018, New Lab Baby! Kristal Maner-Smith and her husband welcomed a baby girl on January 19th, 2018. Welcome to the lab, Celine Smith!
January 2018, New Lab Baby! Matt Tillman and his wife welcomed a baby boy on January 12th, 2018. Welcome to the lab, Elijah Tillman!
November 2017, Selected Speaker. Congratulations to Dr. Denise Okafor on being selected to give a talk at the Southeastern Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society (SERMACS) in Charlotte, NC.
October 2017, Selected Speaker. Congratulations to Dr. Denise Okafor on being selected to give a talk at The National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) in Minneapolis, MN.
October 2017, New Lab Member. Welcome to Dr. Elizabeth Millings, who will be a joint postdoc between the Ortlund and Calvert Labs.
September 2017, Award. Congratulations to Dr. Ortlund, who was selected to receive the 2017 Mentor of the Year Award for the Office of Postdoctoral Education.
September 2017, Honor. Congratulations to Dr. Ortlund, who was honored by Emory School of Medicine Recognitions Committee.
September 2017, New Lab Baby! Xu Liu and his wife welcomed a baby girl on September 4th, 2017. Welcome to the lab, Zoey Liu!
July 2017, Award and Selected Presentation. Congratulations to Dr. Denise Okafor and Matt Tillman on being selected for Travel Awards to the 2017 Protein Society conference in Montreal, Canada. Denise and Matt were also selected to give poster presentations at the conference.
June 2017, New Grant. Congratulations to Dr. Xu Liu on being awarded an AHA Fellowship.
May 2017, Selected Speaker. Congratulations to Suzanne Mays, who was selected as a speaker at this years American Crystallography Association Conference in New Orleans, LA.
May 2017, New Lab Member. Welcome to Emma D'Agostino, newest member of the Ortlund Lab and a second year BCDB student.
May 2017, Ph.D. Defense. Congratulations to Dr. Emily Rye Weikum on successfully defending her PhD thesis!
April 2017, Selected Presentation. Congratulations to Dr. Denise Okafor on being selected to present a poster at the 2017 ASBMB Conference.
April 2017, New Lab Member.Welcome to Emily Winne, who will be the new research assistant in the Emory Integrated Lipidomics Core.
April 2017, Selected Presentation. Congratulations to Ayushi Sharma, who gave an excellent poster presentation at the Emory Undergraduate Research Symposium.
March 2017, Travel Award. Congratulations to Suzanne Mays, who was awarded a travel grant to attend the 2017 American Crystallography Association Conference in New Orleans, LA.
January 2017, Award. Congratulations to Jenny Merrit, who was awarded the "Aubrey Gorbman Award" for best student talk in the Division of Comparative Endocrinology at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Annual Meeting. Suzanne Mays and Dr. Ortlund were co-authors.
January 2017, New Lab Baby! Emily Rye Weikum and her husband welcomed a baby boy on January 10th, 2017. Welcome to the lab, Kellan Weikum!
January 2017, Travel Award. Dr. Denise Okafor was awarded a travel award to attend this years ASBMB conference in Chicago, Illinois.
January 2017, New Grant. Congratulations to Dr. Eric Ortlund for being awarded a $13.6M grant in collaboration with Georgia Tech to study lipidomic changes as a result of exercise! MoTrPAC
January 2017, Selected Speaker. Dr. Denise Okafor was selected to give a talk for FIRST postdocs at Emory University.

December 2017, New LabBaby! Dr. Filipp Frank and his wife welcomed a baby boy on December 30th, 2016. Welcome to the lab, Leon Frank!
December 2016, Journal Cover! Suzanne Mays and Denise Okafor co-authored a paper in JBC that was selected as journal article of the week for December 2016 and was featured on the cover of the journal.
September 2016, Selected Presentations. Emily Weikum and Jen Colucci were each invited to present their research at the 2016 Evolutionary Biology Conference in Marseilles, France. Dr. Eric Ortlund also attended the conference.
June 2016, New Grant. Congratulations to the Ortlund and Jones Lab on receiving a grant from the Emory Children’s Center for Transplantation and Immune-mediated Disorders (CTID) to understand how the microbiome rewires lipid and metabolic signaling in neonates
June 2016, New Lab Members. Welcome to our two summer SIRE students! They will work with Dr. Denise Okafor to run MD simulations on NR complexes.
May 2016, New Grant. Congratulations to Suzanne Mays on being awarded an NRSA F31!
March 2016, Award. Congratulations to Emily Weikum on being awarded the Alec Hodel Research Achievement Award by Graduate Program, Emory University
March 2016, Ph.D. Defense. Congratulations to Jeffrey Kohn for successfully defending his Ph.D. thesis!
March 2016, PES Fellowship. Congratulations to Dr. Mireille El Bejjani on being awarded the 2016 Research Fellowship Award from the Pediatric Endocrine Society for her proposal entitled "The role of soluble lipid transport proteins in modulating the metabolic effects of LRH-1”!
March 2016, New Lab Member. Welcome to our new post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Filipp Frank!
March 2016, Selected Speaker. Congratulations to Emily Weikum on being selected to give a talk at the 2016 SER-CAT Symposium!
March 2016, Poster Awards. Congratulations to Dr. Mike Tuntland and Suzanne Mays for winning co-first place at the 2016 SER-CAT Symposium poster session! Congratulations to Matt Tillman for winning second place at the 2016 SER-CAT Symposium poster session!
February 2016, New Grant. Congratulations to the Ortlund Lab on being awarded a grant from the Barth Syndrome Foundation to perform "Structural Studies of human tafazzin”!
January 2016, New Award. Congratulations to Emily Weikum for winning 1st place in the GDBBS DSAC Symposium!
October 2015, Ph.D. Defense. Congratulations to Will Hudson for successfully defending his Ph.D. thesis! Will has taken a post doc position at Emory University.
July 2015, New Fellowship. Congratulations to Emily Weikum for earning a NIH F31 NRSA!
May 2015, Invited Representative. Congratulations to Emily Weikum who was selected as a representative for the American Association for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology to advocate for scientific research funding to the U.S. Congress
March 2015, Travel Award. Congratulations to Emily Weikum on being awarded Travel Grant to Present Poster at ASBMB Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.
January 2015, New Grant. Congratulations to Dr. Eric Ortlund who was recently awarded a W. M. Keck Foundation Medical Research Grant centered on using ancient proteins to understand gene regulation!
October 2014, Poster Award. Congratulations to Emily Rye on being awarded overall Best Poster at University of Alabama Birmingham’s Structural Symposium.
July 2014, Award Congratulations to Emily Rye for her acceptance to Emory BEST program!
May 2014, New Grant. Congratulations to Dr. Eric Ortlund who was recently awarded an American Heart Association Grant-in-Aid to look at new mechanisms of glucocorticoid-mediated inflammation.
May 2014, New Lab Member. Welcome Austin Herbst as our newest SURE Fellow.
April 2014, Ph.D. Defense. Congratulations to Dr. Paul Musille for successfully defending his Ph.D Thesis! Paul has accepted a potion at NineSigma, Cleveland, OH.
November 2013, Ph.D. Defense. Congratulations to Dr. Jennifer Colucci for successfully defending her Ph. D. Thesis! Jen has taken a position at Northside Hospital.
August 2013, ADA Predoctoral Fellowship. Congratulations to Dr. Kristal-Manor Smith who was awarded a American Diabetes Postdoctoral Fellowship.
September 2013,New Lab Members. We welcome back Christine Youn (former SURE student) and Sam Park to the lab. Both Christine and Sam are Emory Undergraduates participating in the work-study program.
June 2013, Special Recognition. Eric A. Ortlund receives the American Crystallographic Association Margaret C. Etter Early Career Award.
June 2013, AHA Predoctoral Fellowship. Congratulations to Will Hudson who was awarded the American Heart Association Greater SouthEast Predoctoral Fellowship.
February 2013, Special Recognition. Eric A. Ortlund was selected for the 2013 Albert E. Levy Scientific Research Award for Junior Faculty.
April 2013, New Paper in Print. Paul M. Musille, Jeffrey A. Kohn, Eric A. Ortlund. Phospholipid-driven gene expression. FEBBS Letters (2013).
December 2012, New Paper in Print. William H. Hudson, Christine Youn, Eric A. Ortlund. The structural basis of direct glucocorticoid-mediated transrepression. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (2012).
October 2012, Research Presentation. Congratulations for Will Hudson for his recent presentation at Cold Spring Harbor entitled "The structural basis of glucocorticoid-mediated transrepression"
December 2012, New Paper in Print. Geeta N. Elick, Jennifer K. Colucci, Michael J. Harms, Eric A. Ortlund, Joseph W. Thornton. Evolution of minimal specificity and promiscuity in steroid hormone receptors. Plos Genetics 8(11) (2012).[PMID:23166518].
May 2012, AHA Predoctoral Fellowship. Congratulations to Paul Musille who was awarded the American Heart Association Greater SouthEast Predoctoral Fellowship.
May 2012, New Paper in Print. Paul M. Musille, Manish Pathak, Janelle L. Lauer, William H. Hudson, Patrick R. Griffin, Eric A. Ortlund. Antidiabetic Phospholipid – Nuclear Receptor Complex Reveals the Mechanism for Phospholipid Driven Gene Regulation. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology 19, 532-7 (2012).[PMID: 22504882].
New Research Highlight. How a potential new diabetes treatment flips its molecular switch can be read here.
May 2012, New Paper in Print. Jeffrey A. Kohn, Kirti Desphande, Eric A. Ortlund. Deciphering modern glucocorticoid cross-pharmacology using ancestral corticosteroid receptors. Journal of Biological Chemistry. J Biol Chem (2012).[PMID: 21343241].
September 2012, New Lab Members. We welcome Jordan Valdez and Neal Patel to the lab. Both Jordan and Neal are Emory Undergraduates participating in the work-study program.