UIC OTM Spotlight
The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) Office of Technology Management (OTM) will periodically feature a department or faculty member for their advancements in science and technology commercialization.
This feature spotlight goes to the College of Medicine’s department of Pharmacology and Regenerative Medicine.
College of Medicine’s Pharmacology and Regenerative Medicine Department Heading link
University of Illinois Chicago, College of Medicine’s Department of Pharmacology and Regenerative Medicine researchers have recently secured a $13 Million grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH), National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, to expand their research and create 3 additional core facilities at the University. As a part of this grant, the Department of Pharmacology PI’s will be researching the immune function of the endothelium in instructing the fate of phagocytes, such as neutrophils and monocytes/macrophages. This multi-PI program project grant will include projects elucidating the role of protein receptors and metabolic sensors in endothelial cells that regulate lung integrity including sphingosine 1 phosphate receptor 1, S1PR1 (Dr. Dolly Mehta), VE-Cadherin (Dr. Asrar Malik), and Parkin (Dr. Jalees Rehman). Additionally, 3 new cores led by the Departments of Pharmacology and Regenerative Medicine and Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics will support this grant. These cores will include a Cellular Imaging Core (Dr. Gary Mo), Intravital Imaging and Physiology Core (Dr. Yoshikazu Tsukasaki), and an Epigenetics and Transcriptomics Core (Dr. Konstantinos Chronis). These cores will provide expertise to each PI under this grant and make resources available to the university to help carry out the necessary studies. These studies aim to identify the vascular endothelium as an immune organ in the lungs and identify new therapeutic targets.
The College of Medicine’s Pharmacology and Regenerative Medicine Department has not only garnered attention for the large amount of funding they have received from NHLBI but its faculty have been recognized by both internal and external scientific communities for the work that they are doing. This includes the Allen Institute’s Allen Distinguished Investigator Award (Dr. Gary Mo) and the University of Illinois Chicago Distinguished, Basic Life Sciences Researcher of the Year (Dr. Yulia Komarova). Furthermore, UIC startup company DuPage Medical Technology (Dr. Xiaoping Du), has caught the eyes of entrepreneurial and investment communities and will be competing as a finalist in the Science2Startup Competition presented by 5AM Ventures, Atlas Venture, F-Prime Capital, Osage University Partners, RA Capital Management, and Mass Bio.
Please join the Office of Technology Management (OTM) in congratulating these prolific researchers and their accomplishments. For more information on the faculty and their work please visit https://mcph.uic.edu/.