Nida Earns Student Enhancement Award
(April, 2024) Congratulations to Nida for earning $6,000 for her research investigating the role of the DIRAS2 protein in beta cells! See more about the award here.
Nunemaker Lab
Finding and fixing the earliest signs of failure in insulin-producing beta-cells
Recent News
Brian earns his first grant
(February, 2024) Brian List won a Provost’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship award to study the damaging effects of high glucose on beta-cell metabolism. His first of many grants!
Palwasha awarded 2023 Kopchick Fellowship
(November, 2023) Palwasha will receive $10,000 for her research investigating a drug with the potential to treat type 1 diabetes. She will also be completing a fully funded internship as part of the award. Congrats Palwasha!
Nunemaker Lab Recruiting Undergraduates for Summer Research Program
(February, 2023) Our lab is now seeking an undergraduate student to perform diabetes-related research for 10 weeks over the summer. The student will be funded by the new Diabetes Institute Summer Interprofessional Research Experience (DISIRE). The student will gain valuable research and professional experience useful for graduate and medical school applications. More information on the program can be found here. If you are interested in applying, please contact Dr. Nunemaker via his email or the contact form below.
Nick Whitticar Travels to Germany for Fulbright Fellowship
(September, 2022) Nick was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Germany to study stem cell-derived pancreatic islets using microfluidics. He will be working at the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus in Munich, Germany for 10 months. Check out the news article here.
Grace Counts Completes Honors Thesis
(April, 2022) Undergraduate student Grace Counts has successfully defended her honors thesis. Her research focused on the phenomenon of zinc depletion from beta cells during low-grade inflammation. During her time in the Nunemaker lab Grace has earned a co-authorship on a publication and presented her research through poster and oral presentations. She will now continue her education as a medical student at the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Multiple Students Win Awards at 2022 Student Expo
(April, 2022) Maisy Bogart, Grace Counts, Ibiagbani Max-Harry, and Nick Whitticar all took home ribbons at the 2022 Ohio University Student Expo. Awards were given for the Biomedical and Biological Sciences Departments, Diabetes Institute, and the John Kopchick Tri-Beta award.
Kira Slepchenko Finishes Her PhD
(April, 2022) Dr. Slepchenko has defended her dissertation describing metal distribution and depletion in beta-cells during low-grade inflammation. She graduated from the Molecular and Cellular Biology Program in just four years and will stay at Ohio University as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Congrats Kira!
Nick Whitticar Wins First Place in Three Minute Thesis Competition
(December, 2021) The Three Minute Thesis competition challenges students to convey their graduate research topics to a lay audience in under three minutes. Nick came in first place for his presentation regarding an organ-on-a-chip platform to study pulsatile insulin secretion. Check out the news article here.
Lab Members Earn Kopchick Fellowships
(November, 2021) Molecular and Cellular Biology student Ibiagbani Max-Harry and Translational Biomedical Sciences student Nick Whitticar were both awarded $10,000 of funding through the John J. Kopchick Awards. Their projects will investigate the the effect of parathyroid hormone related protein on islet function and the role of islet oscillations in the progression of type 2 diabetes, respectively.
Our Focus
Without insulin, your body would not be able to regulate how much fuel (glucose) to provide to your muscles or how much energy should be put into storage as fat. Without insulin, you get diabetes (too much sugar in the blood, and not enough where it belongs). My lab studies the cells in the pancreas that make and release insulin in order to learn how they help to regulate energy needs of the body and to learn how to fix what goes wrong with the beta-cells in type 2 diabetes. See our work and specific projects.
Here is a link to all of our publications: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=nunemaker+cs
Our laboratory is devoted to finding and fixing the earliest signs of failure in insulin-producing beta-cells that lead to diabetes.
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Our Members
Join the Nunemaker Lab
The Nunemaker Lab is actively seeking graduate students. Prospective graduate students should directly contact Dr. Craig Nunemaker and apply through the Biological Sciences (M.S./Ph.D.), Molecular and Cellular Biology (Ph.D.), or Translational Biomedical Sciences (Ph.D.) programs.
The Nunemaker Lab is also seeking the dedicated undergraduate students. Prospective undergraduate research assistants (RA), will learn standard molecular biology techniques (gel electrophoresis, PCR, western blot, immunohistochemistry), as well as cell culture, mouse genetics, state of the art confocal microscopy, and lineage tracing analysis. See details below.
Duties of undergraduate research assistants
Commit approximately 8-10 hours per week on a flexible basis to work in the lab. This work is designed to address some of the issues described above and also serves as pilot work for our patient studies. RA’s typically work in concert with Dr. Nunemaker, Dr. Corbin and other members of the laboratory in the laboratory. Each RA is assigned to one project, usually based on their expressed preference after hearing about the current projects. RA’s are trained on how to use the equipment, run the experiments, and analyze the data. They are expected to read the current literature related to their project and participate in weekly lab meetings. Students who have completed some course work in biology and physiology are given preference. Familiarity with PC-based computers is a plus. Research assistant positions will begin as experience-gaining volunteer opportunities, with the possibility of moving into a paid or for-credit arrangement. RAs are also encouraged to complete their honor’s thesis in the lab. Given the amount of training involved, we prefer students who anticipate being able to work in the lab for at least one full year.