Brandon Davies, PhD
Principal Investigator
Regulation of lipid homeostasis has been the consistent theme of my scientific career. As an undergraduate at the University of Utah, I studied cholesterol trafficking. As a graduate student at Berkeley, I studied two transcription factors that regulated the synthesis of ergosterol (the yeast version of cholesterol), and then as a post-doc at UCLA I started my work on the role of endothelial cells in regulating triglyceride metabolism. I also like to eat lipids. Aside from lipids, I am a long time biker. Although moving to Iowa has reduced the amount of time I spend mountain biking, it has added additional climatic elements to my bike commute and allowed me to expand the temperature range in which I have successfully biked to lab (current range -24 degrees [-41 with windchill] to 110 degrees).
Sonja Smith
Research Assistant
Athira Anirudhan
Postdoctoral Scholar
Alex Dumas
Graduate Student
Vir Patel
Undergraduate Student
Tommy Mouser
Undergraduate Student
Evelyn Asay
Undergraduate Student
Mitchell Smith
Undergraduate Student
Atherosharkosis
Lab Mascot
Alumni
Research Associates
| Shwetha Shetty Shwetha Engineering in Biotechnology in India, then did M.S. from Stephen F. Austin State University. Before coming to Iowa she worked as a Research Associate at UTHSCT, Tyler, Texas and IPSEN Pharmaceuticals, MA. After leaving the lab, she took a job at IDT. My lab experience got me interested in gene expression and regulation. Shwetha's Davies Lab Publications
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Postdocs
| Kelli Sylvers-Davie, PhD Kelli's Davies Lab Publications
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| Kathryn Spitler, PhD Katie's Davies Lab Publications
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Graduate Students
| Sydney Walker Graduate Student (2022-2026) Sydney's Davies Lab Publications: Walker SG, Chen YQ, Sylvers-Davie KL, Dou A, Zhen EY, Qian Y, Wen Y, Ehsani ME, Smith SA, Thapa R, Mercer MJ, Langmack L, Bhattarai BR, Ploug M, Konrad RJ, Davies BSJ. Angiopoietin-like 3 monomers are abundant in human plasma but are unable to inhibit endothelial lipase. JCI Insight. 2025 Oct 28;e197827. PMID: 41148215 |
| Kelli Sylvers-Davie A Minnesota native, Kelli graduated from the College of Saint Scholastica in Duluth, MN with a bachelors in Biochemistry and Biology. She joined the Biochemistry program at the University of Iowa in 2016 and officially joined the Davies lab in the spring of 2017. In 2021 she defended her thesis, " ". She then continued in the lab as a postdoctoral fellow (see above) Kelli's Davies Lab Publications are listed above. |
| Allison (Xun) Chi Two months after finishing her undergraduate degree in China in 2012, Allison came to Iowa to begin her graduate studies in the department of Biochemistry. She joined the Davies lab in the spring of 2013. In 2017 Allison defended her thesis, "Extracellular Regulation of LPL Activity by Angiopoietin-like Proteins" and became the first student to get her PhD from the Davies Lab. Allison then joined the lab of Steve Bensinger at UCLA for her postdoc. Allison's Davies Lab Publications:
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| Emily Malcolm Cushing Originally from Arkansas, Emily received her B.S. in Chemistry and Biology from the University of Central Arkansas in 2007 and her M.S. in Chemistry from Georgia Tech in 2010. She joined the Biochemistry program at the University of Iowa in 2012, and became the first graduate student to join the Davies lab in 2014. Emily defended her thesis "Regulation of Plasma Triglycerides by ANGPTL4 and GPIHBP1" in 2018. After graduating, Dr. Cushing began her postdoc in the lab of Alan Attie at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Emily's Davies lab publications:
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Undergraduate Students
| Grace Early Undergraduate Student (2024-2026) |
| Hattie Ruhland Undergraduate Student (2025-2026) |
| Max Mercer Undergraduate Student (2023-2025) |
| Ethan Hahlbeck Undergraduate Student (2022-2024) |
| Kaleb Bierstedt Undergraduate Student (2021-2022) | |
| Gabe Ewert Undergraduate Student (2019-2022) | |
| Hannah Johnson Undergraduate Student (2019-2022) | |
| Hannah Shows Hannah joined the Davies’ lab at the end of her freshman year, becoming the first undergraduate to join the lab. Although Hannah never fulfilled her dream of studying triglyceride metabolism in live grizzly bears she did finish her degree in Biochemistry in December 2015. In the fall of 2016 she started graduate school at Wright State University, eventually joining the lab of Kate Excoffon. Hannah's Davies Lab Publications:
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| Alex Hjelmaas Alex joined the Davies lab at the beginning of his Junior year. While in the lab Alex was awarded an ICRU Summer Research Award and the H.G Wittman Scholar Award. Alex also promised that he would continued to work in the lab until the Cub won the World Series. Despite this promise, Alex graduated in Spring 2015 and then attended medical school at the University of Michigan. The Cubs did not win the World Series until November 2016. Alex you still owe us a year and a half of lab work. Alex's Davies Lab Publications:
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| Emily Britt Emily joined the Davies lab at the beginning of her Sophomore year. In her time here, Emily was awarded a Rex Montgomery Biochemistry Scholarship, the H.G. Khorana Scholar Award from the Department of Biochemistry, and the Joseph E. and Ursil I. Callen Prize from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. After graduating with a BS in Biochemistry in the Spring of 2017, she started graduate school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Nutritional Sciences PhD program. She joined the lab of Jing Fan. Emily's Davies Lab Publications:
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| Ashley Segura Ashley joined the Davies lab at the end of her Freshman year. She worked on experiments to quantify binding between lipases and their inhibitors. Her lab duties include keeping the graduate students up to date on current memes and dance moves. In her time here she was an IBA scholar and was awarded the Joseph E. and Ursil I. Callen Prize from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. After graduating with a BS in Biochemistry in the Spring of 2019, she started graduate school at the University of California Berkeley in the Molecular and Cellular Biology PhD program. She joined the lab of Roberto Zoncu. Ashley's Davies Lab Publications:
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| Emily Frankowski Undergraduate Student (2017-2019) |
| Dasha Kozlova Undergraduate Student (2017-2021) |
| Derek Metzger Undergraduate Student (2018-2019) |