2025 Midwest Metabolism Meeting

Ruma Banerjee’s research focuses on the structural enzymology of human B₁₂ trafficking proteins and the chemical biology of hydrogen sulfide signaling and homeostasis with a focus on the three-way interaction between diet, microbial and host energy metabolism. Her contributions have been recognized by her election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Merck (from the ASBMB) and the Pfizer (from the ACS) awards. She is a fellow of the ASBMB and the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. She was the founding Director of the NIH-funded Redox Biology Center and has trained >100 students and postdoctoral fellows. She is deeply committed to mentoring and is the founding co-Director of ASBMB’s NIH-funded MOSAIC program. She currently serves on the editorial board on Biochemistry and Trends in Chemistry and was an associate editor for >10 years for Chemical Reviews and the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Connie Krawczyk, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Van Andel Institute and a leader in investigating the links between metabolism, epigenetics and the immune system, with the goal of understanding how they work together in health and disease.

She earned her B.S. with honors in molecular biology and genetics from University of Guelph followed by her Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from University of Toronto. She then completed postdoctoral fellowships in the labs of Dr. Hao Shen and Dr. Edward Pearce at University of Pennsylvania before taking a position as a senior research biologist at Merck Frosst. In 2011, Dr. Krawczyk was recruited to McGill University as an assistant professor, where her work focused on the molecular mechanisms regulating immune function and the immune system’s role in cancer development. She joined VAI as an associate professor in 2018 as part of its new Metabolic and Nutritional Programming group. She is an active member of several professional societies, including the Society for Leucocyte Biology, the immunoTherapy NeTwork (iTNT) and the Canadian Society for Immunology, and has served as a reviewer for the journals Cell Reports, Cell Metabolism, EMBO Reports, Immunity and Nature Scientific Reports, among others.

Natalie Niemi is an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Her lab is broadly interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying mitochondrial biogenesis, regulation, and turnover. In particular, the lab has a longstanding interest in the function of mitochondrial phosphatases (and, increasingly, kinases) and how these influence organellar homeostasis. In addition to her scientific interests, Dr. Niemi is invested in mentorship and has published multiple articles on improving academic mentoring for trainees and faculty.

Zachary T. Schafer is the Coleman Foundation Associate Professor of Cancer Biology in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. His laboratory’s overarching goal to examine and characterize the biological mechanisms that permit cancer cell survival during tumor progression. More specifically, he has longstanding interests in understanding cell death processes induced by loss of integrin-mediated attachment to the extracellular matrix (ECM). This includes the discovery that ECM-detachment can compromise cell metabolism in a fashion that prohibits cell survival. In addition, his laboratory uncovered a link between RIPK1 and mitophagy during ECM-detachment, the mechanism by which SGK1 promotes metabolic reprogramming during ECM-detachment, and that ECM-detached cells are resistant to cell death caused by ferroptosis. Dr. Schafer’s research interests also encompass the role of intercellular communication between cancer cells and those present in the tumor microenvironment. This line of investigation centers on how metabolic changes in tumor cells impact reciprocal cross talk between cancer cells and fibroblasts or immune cells.

Dr. Schafer received his B.S. in Biological Sciences from Notre Dame in 2001. In 2006, he received his Ph.D. in Molecular Cancer Biology from Duke University under the direction of Dr. Sally Kornbluth. He then joined Dr. Joan Brugge’s laboratory in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School as a postdoctoral fellow. In 2009, Dr. Schafer returned to the Department of Biological Sciences at Notre Dame as an Assistant Professor. In 2015, he was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure. From 2019-2022, he served as the Assistant Department Chair in the Department of Biological Sciences. Dr. Schafer is currently appointed as the co-chair of the Metastasis & Microenvironment Peer Review Committee of the American Cancer Society and regularly serves as a grant reviewer for the National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program. He is also an Associate Editor for the journal Breast Cancer Research. Dr. Schafer is the recipient of a V Scholar Award from the V Foundation for Cancer Research, a Career Catalyst Research Award from Susan G. Komen, and a Research Scholar Award from the American Cancer Society.