Honors and Awards

Deepak Kumbhare, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery, who was recently awarded a $150,000 New Investigator Grant from the Heffter Research Institute.

KTBS - This is the first and largest grant of its kind in the history of LSU Health Shreveport. The center will be led by Oren Rom, Ph.D., R.D., senior associate dean for basic and translational research, and Wayne Orr, Ph.D., vice chair for pathology and director of the Center for Cardiovascular Diseases and Sciences.

KSLA - LSUHS has received its first-ever National Science Foundation Center Grant Award to launch a Post-Transcriptional Regulation Center, which will be a first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary research center dedicated to understanding how cells control metabolism through post-transcription processes.

Omar Franco Coronel, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, FWCC, was awarded a new one-year R01 grant from the NIH National Cancer Institute.

Hind Lal, PHD, Professor and Chair of Cellular Biology and Anatomy, was awarded a new three-year R01 grant from the NIH National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

David Morgens, PhD, Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, was awarded a new three-year R01 grant from the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Tousif Sultan, PHD, Assistant Professor of Cellular Biology and Anatomy, was awarded a new five-year R01 grant from the NIH National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

Khalid El Saafien, PHD, Assistant Professor of Molecular & Cellular Physiology, who secured a new three-year R00 grant from the NIH National Institute of Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

Hongxue Shi, PHD, Assistant Professor of Molecular & Cellular Physiology, who secured a new three-year R00 grant from the NIH National Insitute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease totaling $744,191 for his project.

Arif Yurdagul, PHD, Associate Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, was awarded a new four-year R01 grant from the NIH National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute totaling $2.6 Million for his latest research project.

Kevin Murnane, PHD, was awarded a new two-year UG3 grant from the NIH through Virogenomics BioDevelopment, Inc. for his project "IND-enabling studies and phase I clinical trials to advance CD74-target, DRhQ, as a treatment for stimulant use disorder."

Amr Salem, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pathology and Translational Pathobiology, who was awarded a new NIH three-year R00 grant.

A. Wayne Orr, PhD, received a $300,000 Transformational Pathway Award from the American Heart Association in July 2025 for his work on “Integrin-dependent endothelial priming in atherosclerosis”.

Hongyan Guo, PhD, Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, who was awarded a new two-year R21 grant from the NIH National Cancer Institute totaling $412,134 for her project titled, "Boosting Oncolytic HSV Immunotherapy by Enabling Necroptosis."

Taichiro Nonaka, DDS, PhD, Assistant Professor of Cellular Biology and Anatomy, has been awarded a new two-year R21 grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research (NIDCR).