Burrin Lab Members

I obtained a B.S. degree in animal science at Purdue University and M.S. and Ph.D. in animal science at University of Nebraska.  I completed a postdoctoral fellowship in pediatric nutrition at the USDA-ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center (CNRC) in Houston where I am currently appointed as a Research Physiologist with USDA-ARS and Professor of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine.  

My research is focused on pediatric nutrition, metabolism and gastroenterology.  I have been a leader in use of pig as a translational, animal model of human infants. My research has been funded by USDA and NIH grants to study the function of glucagon-like peptide 2 (GLP-2), fibroblast growth factor 19 (FGF19), and the role of parenteral nutrition on neonatal intestine development and cholestatic liver disease, as well as necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC).  I also serve in the leadership of the NIDDK-funded Texas Medical Center Digestive Disease Center and as Director, Pilot and Feasibility Program, and Co-Director of the NIH T32 Fellowship Training Grant within the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology. 
 
I have received national awards for research in the area of pediatric nutrition and gastroenterology and parenteral nutrition including the Mead Johnson Award from the American Society for Nutrition and the Growth and Development Award from the American Society for Animal Science. Most recent were the Distinguished Senior Research Scientist from ARS and the Bruce Bistrian Award for mentoring from the American Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition.  I have been involved as an organizer and invited speaker at national symposia and workshops on GI-related topics including Role of Gut Nutrient Sensing in Metabolic Diseases, Parenteral Lipid Emulsions in Pediatric Liver Disease, Modulation of Bile Acid Receptor Signaling Pathways in the Gut and Liver. I have published more than 250 publications in journals, including Gastroenterology, Proceedings of the National Academy Science, Science, and American Journal Clinical Nutrition; with an H-index of 75.

My leadership in mentoring has been recognized by the Excellence in Research Mentorship Award, Dept. Pediatrics, and BCM. I have mentored 60 postdoctoral fellows and graduate students resulting in 70 peer-reviewed articles.  I currently serve on the editorial board of the American Journal of Physiology-GI & Liver Section,and is a past board member of the Journal of Nutrition, Journal of Animal Science and Domestic Animal Endocrinology.  I have served on several USDA, NIDDK and ASPEN Rhoads Research Foundation grant review panels.  I have also served in various leadership roles in the American Society for Nutrition, including Symposium Committee Chair, Energy Macronutrient Metabolism Research Interest Group Chair, Long-range Planning Committee, and is served on the ASPEN Task Force on Intravenous Lipid Emulsions and NICHD Pre-B Working Group on Dietary Recommendations for premature infants.
 

I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Dietetics from Louisiana State University. I then earned a Master’s degree in Human Resources (Nutrition) from University of Louisiana at Lafayette. I obtained my doctorate from University of Florida in Nutritional Sciences while studying in the Center for Nutritional Genomics under the mentorship of Dr. Robert Cousins, Ph.D.. I moved to Houston to pursue my postdoctoral training at the Children’s Nutrition Research Center (CNRC), where I have continued to work. Since my start here, I have held positions as an Instructor and recently an Assistant Professor. I have continued my education while at the CNRC, and am currently working towards an Associate’s degree in Computer Science to keep up with the shifting focus in biomedical research to analyze “big data”.  My research is currently supported by an NIH K01 grant and is focused on the development and treatment of various forms of neonatal liver disease caused by cholestasis.  
 

I am originally from Indianapolis, Indiana and I got my Bachelor’s of Science in Animal Science from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. I then got a Master’s of Science in Animal Science with a focus on Equine Nutrition and Exercise Physiology from Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. I moved back to West Lafayette, Indiana to pursue a dual Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine and Ph.D. from Purdue University. My Ph.D. is in Animal Science and swine nutrition. I studied the interactions between swine nutrition, health and mitigating the impact of swine production on the environment and greenhouse gas emissions. As a veterinary student I focused on large animals and worked with a veterinary pathologist to develop post-mortem assessments of acute heat stress in growing pigs. I joined the Burrin lab as a Children’s Nutrition Research Center post-doctoral fellow in 2019. I was promoted to Instructor in July, 2022. My focus of my postdoctoral research was on the developmental regulation of FXR-FGF19 axis in early neonatal life.  Current projects seek to understand the molecular and cellular programs that regulate FGF19 expression in the intestine and how endocrine factors that trigger parturition, such as cortisol, stimulate FGF19 secretion at birth. 
 

I was born and raised in Germany. I have over 25 years of training and expertise in nutritional biochemistry and the development of clinically-relevant experimental models using the pig.  My training started in the laboratory of Dr. Dieter Häussinger in Freiburg, Germany where I completed my Ph.D. I continued building my expertise during a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Peter Reeds in at the CNRC in Houston starting in 1996.  My training with Drs. Reeds and Burrin involved the use of stable isotopes and their measurement with mass spectrometry to quantifying the gut metabolism of amino acids in infant pigs.  I have continued my collaboration with Dr. Doug Burrin and others at the CNRC where my expertise and skill have been instrumental in developing new surgical approaches and nutrition support regimens to establish models of total parenteral nutrition (TPN), parenteral-nutrition associated liver disease (PNALD) and necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in term and preterm neonatal piglets. I have experience with several experimental approaches in neonatal pigs including hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamps, indirect calorimetry, dual energy X-ray absorptiometry.  My experience in hepatocyte isolation and culture developed during doctoral training has been applied to establishing new methods for isolation and cell culture of hepatocytes and Kupffer cells in piglets in collaboration with Dr. Burrin’s research group.  I currently serve as a coordinator in planning logistics, animal husbandry, and surgical procedures for swine research protocols conducted at the CNRC.  When not working with pigs, I enjoy traveling, being outdoors running, bicycling, hiking, and kitchen activities like cooking and baking. Occasional trips to classical concerts or the opera are a treat.
 

I completed my BS in Microbiology, Nankai University, Tianjin, China, 1988; MS in Molecular Biology, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China, 1991; MS in Biochemistry, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, 2001. I began working in Dr. Burrin’s lab in 2003. I serve as the lab manager to support ordering My primary responsibility is quantitative analysis of biological samples using different techniques. I am involved in troubleshooting new techniques to be implemented in the lab. I also supervise and assist postdoctoral fellows and students in general lab operation, quantitative analyses and surgical procedures.
 

I was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1996 I moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where I studied biology at Lake Erie College. After receiving a biology degree, I moved to Houston, TX, and started working in biomedical research and continuing my education to receive a master’s degree in Studies of Human Behavior. Avid learner and researcher, I kept learning and obtaining post-graduate certificates in Immunology (Harvard University), Human and animal behavior (Oxford University), and Forensic DNA Analysis (Cambridge University). I have over 20 years of research experience and currently work as a senior research assistant for Dr. Burrin at Children’s Nutrition Research Center. I am a member of the American Society for Nutrition, the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, and The American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. 
 

I completed by BS in Chemistry, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, PR China, 1983, MS in Physical Chemistry, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, PR China, 1986 and MS in Analytic Chemistry, California Polytechnic University, LA, USA, 1995.  I began working in Dr. Burrin’s lab in 1996 and prior to that I worked in industry laboratories for four years.  My main duties are to train and assist postdoctoral fellows with various techniques, such as histology, ELISA assays and bile acid assays. I assist with animal surgeries, tracer infusion protocols and mass spectrometry analysis.  I also supervise and maintain lab equipment and develop new methods. I am involved in several ongoing projects in the lab. 

I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Animal Science from Purdue University, and a master’s degree from University of Kentucky. I obtained my doctorate in Animal Sciences from Iowa State University.  I began my postdoctoral fellowship at the CNRC in Dr. Burrin’s lab in January 2023.  During my master’s program, my work focused on growth and physiological development of the neonatal pig gut. My PhD focused on how vitamin A supplementation impacts the immune system in pigs. My postdoctoral research project is focus on how enteral bile acids regulate gut-liver FXR-FGF19 signaling to maintain bile acid homeostasis in TPN-fed neonatal piglets.  
 

My journey began with a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Puerto Rico, the country where I was born and raised. Later, I pursued a master's degree in medical biotechnology at the University of Illinois-Chicago, where I gained the research experience that served as a stepping stone for my current position as a Ph.D. student in the Immunology and Microbiology Program at BCM. Since joining the Burrin lab in the summer of 2021, my primary research interests in the understanding of the pathogenesis of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) with a focus on the role that nutrition and the intestinal microbiome play in the development and progression of disease.