News & Announcements
Julia at 2024 Discovery Day
March 10, 2025
Congratulations to Clara for being awarded the Daniel T. O’Connor Young Investigator Travel Award from the Catecholamine Society to attend ASPET 2025.
February 17, 2025
Brittany Rotanz started as our new research assistant - welcome!
December 5, 2024
Ole and Stacia published a paper together with Andreia on the effects of positive allosteric modulation of the glutamate transporter on cocaine-elicited behaviors in rats.
November 7, 2024
Julia won Medical Student Award for Bench Research - Honorable mention in the poster competition at Discovery Day!
October 27, 2024
Christina got married. Congratulations!
Julia at 2024 Discovery Day
November 7, 2024
Julia won Medical Student Award for Bench Research - Honorable mention in the poster competition at Discovery Day!
September 15, 2024
The Mortensen labs celebrated that Ole was awarded a 5-year R01 from NIDA.
Rashmi & Ole
July 25, 2024
Rashmi successfully defended her thesis. Congratulations!
July 1, 2024
Ole, Adele, Sam, and Clara published a paper in collaboration with Poul Nissen and Azadeh Shahsavar on the CryoEM structure of DAT in complex with an allosteric modulator.
June 24, 2024
STAR student Nicholas Brattini joined the lab. Welcome!
Adele & Ole
May 28, 2024
Medical student Julia Danon joined the lab. Welcome!
April 18, 2024
Adele successfully defended her thesis. Congratulations!
January 27 - February 1, 2024
The lab was well represented at the Winter Conference on Brain Research (Winter Brain).
December 14, 2023
The Mortensen Labs had a holiday get-together.
December 7, 2023
Stacia, Christina, Delaney and Ole published a paper in collaboration with Rodrigo España on MKP3 mediated regulation of dopamine signaling and motivation for cocaine. (https://www.jneurosci.org/content/early/2023/12/05/JNEUROSCI.0727-23.2023)
September 1, 2023
Drug Discovery and Development MS student Henok Ermias joined the lab. Welcome!
March 17, 2023
Ole and Shaili published a book chapter titled “Discovery and Development of Monoamine Transporter Ligands” in Drug Development in Psychiatry, a part of the Advances in Neurobiology book series (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-21054-9_4).
January 1, 2023
Pharmacology and Physiology MS students Adele Yang and Rashmi Tantri joined the lab. Welcome!
November 4, 2022
Ole gave a talk and Clara and Christina presented posters at the Annual Meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Pharmacology Society (MAPS).
October 14, 2022
Clara passed her qualifying exam and is now officially a PhD candidate. Congratulations!
September 30, 2022
Ole and co-PI Dr. España were awarded a R21 grant from NIDA.
September 22, 2022
Ole was appointed to the editorial advisory board of the ASPET journal Molecular Pharmacology.
September 1, 2022
Ole was awarded tenure!
April 4, 2022
Christina and Clara did a great job presenting their work at the Experimental Biology conference in Philadelphia. View photos.
March 24, 2022
Christina passed her qualifying exam and is now officially a PhD candidate. Congratulations!
March 9, 2022
Clara passed her preliminary exam. Congratulations!
February 16, 2022
Ole and Andreia published a paper on the serotonin transporter from the cestode Echinococcus granulosus.
February 9, 2022
Christina, Clara, and Ole hosted a session for high school students at the joint meeting of the American Junior Academy of Science (AJAS) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The session included a lab introduction, a lab tour and live Q&A.
December 14, 2021
Ole and Shaili published a paper in collaboration with Ivet Bahar at University of Pittsburgh and Randy Blakely at Florida Atlantic University on allosteric modulators of DAT affecting amphetamine-elicited behaviors in C. elegans.
October 29, 2021
Christina won 2nd place in the poster competition at the 2021 Mid-Atlantic Pharmacology Society (MAPS) meeting.
October 21, 2021
Sreya, Clara and Christina presented posters at Discovery Day 2021.
September 22, 2021
Ole gave a talk with the title "From Schistosomes to Drug Addiction - A Transporter Story with a Twist" at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.
September 3, 2021
Ole gave a talk at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark on academic careers in the US.
June 23, 2021
Ole gave a talk with the title “Allosteric modulation of monoamine transporters as a therapeutic target for drug addiction” at Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Samantha Ita
June 21, 2021
Drexel STAR student Samantha Ita joined the lab – welcome!
June 2, 2021
Shaili published a paper on sydnocarb as an allosteric modulator of DAT
June 2, 2021
Drexel Medical Student Summer Research Fellow Sreya Muchivolu joined the lab – welcome!
May 10, 2021
Ole gave a talk with the title “Allosteric modulation of monoamine transporters as a therapeutic target for drug addiction” at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Department of Physiology and Biophysics
May 5, 2021
A paper co-authored by Stacia and Ole, together with Dr. España, was published in Neuropsychopharmacology.
March 9, 2021
Pharmacology and Physiology PhD student Clara Xu joined the lab – welcome!
January 19, 2021
Ole was together with Dr. España awarded a CURE grant.
October 12, 2020
A paper co-authored by Stacia and Ole, together with Dr. España, was published in Journal of Neuroscience.
August 11, 2020
Ole was awarded an NIH grant.
July 14, 2020
Ole was quoted in a Knox News story on the race against COVID-19.
July 12, 2020
Andreia published a paper on EAAT2 transport regulation, and Ole was a co-author.
June 1, 2020
Stacia served as guest editor of the newsletter of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society in the section on diverse voices – LGBTQIA+.
March 1, 2020
Pharmacology and Physiology PhD student Christina Besada joined the lab – welcome!
January 15, 2020
Stacia received a travel award to attend the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society 2020 meeting in Glasgow, Scotland.
January 1, 2020
Drug Discovery & Development MS student Hanming Zeng joined the lab – welcome!
2019
Celebration of Caitlyn’s graduation.
June 11, 2019
Our first work on the allosteric dopamine transporter modulator KM822 was published in ACS Chemical Neuroscience.
April 24, 2019
Caitlyn presented her work at Scholars Share, an event hosted by Drexel's Graduate College and the Graduate Student Association.
March 31 – April 4, 2019
Shaili presented her work at the American Chemical Society Spring 2019 meeting in Orland, Florida.
January 10, 2019
A paper co-authored by Shaili and Ole, together with Dr. Osei-Owusu from our department, was published in Pharmacological Research.
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2018
December 11, 2018
Stacia was awarded a PhRMA foundation pre-doctoral fellowship in Pharmacology/Toxicology – congrats!
October 23, 2018
Stacia, Shaili and Caitlyn presented posters at Discovery Day. Stacia won second place in the Outstanding Senior Graduate Poster category. Congrats!
June 11, 2018
Nan successfully defended her MS thesis entitled “Pharmacological Study of KM822 Analogs – a Novel Class of Dopamine Transporter Inhibitors.”
June 4, 2018
Fawwaz Siddiqui from the University of Nevada joined the lab as a SURF student.
Stacia Lewandowski and Shaili Aggarwal with their posters at the 2016 Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego.
May 17, 2018
Stacia passed her qualifying exam and is now officially a PhD candidate.
May 10, 2018
Yudi successfully presented and defended the work resulting from her internship.
April 11, 2018
Shaili and Sameer’s baby boy, Suhaan, was born.
April 4, 2018
Marta Koperska joined the lab as a co-op research assistant.
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2017
Stacia Lewandowski at SfN 2017.
December 20, 2017
Shaili and Ole published two manuscripts entitled "Overview of Monoamine Transporters” and “In Vitro Assays for the Functional Characterization of the Dopamine Transporter (DAT).”
November 11–15, 2017
Stacia presented her work at the 2017 Society for Neuroscience Meeting (SfN) in Washington, D.C.
Ole and his Outstanding Researcher Award.
April 13, 2017
Shaili was selected as a recipient of the Brody Family Medical Trust Fund fellowship for medical research in incurable diseases. The prestigious fellowships fund up to two consecutive years for full-time postdoctoral fellows in the early stages of their research into cutting-edge treatments. Learn more about the fellowship.
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2016
November 30, 2016
Andy was accepted to medical school at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine.
November 12–16, 2016
Shaili and Stacia presented their work at the 2016 Society for Neuroscience Meeting (SfN) in San Diego.
September 29, 2016
Shaili received a 2016 NIDA Diversity Scholar Travel Award to participate in the Annual Society for Neuroscience Meeting on November 2016 in San Diego.
Sayani with her congratulatory cake.
July 1, 2016
Ole was promoted to associate professor.
May 27, 2016
Ole became an American citizen.
May 19, 2016
Sayani received the Outstanding Achievement Award in Drug Discovery & Development.
May 7, 2016
The Mortensen Lab celebrated its graduates with a barbecue at the Mortensen residence.
8th Annual Julius Axelrod Symposium
May 5, 2016
Ole received the Outstanding Researcher Award (New and Early Stage Investigator) from the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences & Professional Studies.
April 23, 2016
Ole completed the five-mile Narberth CF Run!
April 18, 2016
Sayani successfully defended her MS in Drug Discovery & Development thesis entitled "The Development of RNAi-Based Genetic Tools to Silence MKP3 Expression in a Cell-Specific Manner."
April 12, 2016
Ole gave an invited talk at the 8th Annual Julius Axelrod Symposium. The title of the talk was "Novel Ways of Modulating Monoamine Transporter Function."
February 23, 2016
Heath D. Schmidt (University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing) visited our department and gave a talk entitled "Central Glucagon-like Peptide-1 Signaling: A novel mechanism underlying cocaine addiction."
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2015
December 14, 2015
Justin successfully defended his MS in Drug Discovery & Development thesis entitled "Development and Optimization of Assays to Characterize a Novel Allosteric Site in the Serotonin Transporter."
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Publications
View all Dr. Mortensen’s publications in PubMed.
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