This past week was the ASTS Surgeon-Scientist Career Development Conference. This initiative has been Dr. Bumgardner’s passion that was made a resounding success with the vision of the ASTS Surgeon-Scientist Committee.

The conference featured prominent transplant surgeon-scientists from across the US and from home. Dr. Keri Lunsford, alumnus from the Bumgardner lab, and Dr. Sylvester Black, current transplant surgeon-scientist at OSU, co-chaired the event taking place at Duke University.

The event brought together aspiring, early-career, and senior surgeon-scientists for fantastic talks and breakout sessions. The conference was a great opportunity to build new professional networks while reinforcing existing connections. Shane appreciated Dr. Bumgardner’s direction for the conference: “Meet at least five new people”. With so many welcoming participants, he lost count of how many introductions he made!

Congrats to Dr. Bumgardner for getting the Surgeon-Scientist Career Development Conference from idea to implementation!

Big congratulations for big achievements. Shane recently presented his work at the DOS Research Conference(pictured above).

He has also had his abstract “Transcription Factor Aiolos Deficiency in CD8+ T Cells Impacts the Development and Cytotoxic Effector Function of Antibody Suppressor CD8+ T Cells” accepted for the WTC upcoming in August!

To fund this research, he applied for and received funds from the American Society of Transplant Surgeons geared towards medical student research, and an NIH T35 grant awarded to OSUCOM to train medical students in immunology and virology.

We are proud of all the hard work and effort!!

Zimmerer J.M., Aldhahi H, Bumgardner G.L., Mouse Models and Experimental Protocols to Study Alloantibody-Mediated Transplant Rejection, Current Protocols, 2025

Congratulations, Madison and Sydney, for graduating from OSU’s College of Medicine!

Congratulations to Sydney Castellanos and Madison Hart who are both OSU COM M4 students.

Sydney matched into General Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania and Madison matched into combined

Medicine/Pediatrics residency program at the University of Minnesota!

So proud of these two STARs!

Jaden Levinson

Started OSU undergrad in 2024, Joined the Bumgardner Lab in February 2025.I am an honors Biochemistry student on the pre-med track at Ohio state’s college of arts and sciences. I understand the importance that immunology plays in medicine, and as well as being fascinating to learn, Immunobiology is applicable in almost every specialty. What interested me about the Bumgardner Lab combines a highly collaborative, team-oriented research experience with the common goal of alleviating patients for the need of taking immunosuppressants. Every day I am thrilled to learn more about Transplant Immunobiology and make my own contributions to science and medicine

Zimmerer, J.M., Chaudhari, S., Koneru, K., Han, J.L., Abdel-Rasoul, M., Uwase, H., Yi, T., Breuer, C.K., and G.L. Bumgardner. Germinal Center B Cells are Uniquely Targeted by Antibody-Suppressor CXCR5+CD8+ T cells. Transplant. Direct. 11(2):e1742, 2025. PMCID: 11723704.

J.L. Han, J.M. Zimmerer, Q. Zeng, S. Chaudhari, A. Satoskar, M. Abdel-Rasoul, H. Uwase, C.K. Breuer, and G.L. Bumgardner. Antibody-suppressor CXCR5⁺CD8⁺ T cells are more potent regulators of humoral alloimmunity after kidney transplant in mice compared to CD4⁺ regulatory T cells. J. Immunol. In press.

Congratulation to lab member Colleen Booth.  She was selected for a $2650 award after applying to the Undergraduate Research Scholarship.

Kavya Koneru presented both poster and oral presentations at the Autumn Immunology Conference.