Dr. William Muller is the recipient of the NIH MERIT Award.
Dr. William Muller, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, has been named a recipient of the National Institutes of Health MERIT (Method to Extend Research in Time) Award by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. This important and highly selective award is bestowed upon researchers whose innovative work is distinctly superior and shows significant promise in the future. The $2.1 million five-year grant will support Dr. Muller's investigations of inflammation, such as its mechanisms and ways to control them. Its findings may hold broad potential for future clinical applications.
Inflammation is a wide field of study that has increasingly become an area of interest for many researchers. Inflammation is the first response of the immune system to any damaged tissue. White blood cells (leucocytes) move from blood vessels into the inflamed tissue, in effect "healing" the damaged tissue by removing bacteria and cellular debris. Inflammation is a component to a host of maladies, ranging from the unpleasant-but-nonfatal (tonsillitis, eczema, rheumatoid arthritis) to more complicated, possibly fatal diseases and conditions, among them Type II diabetes, atherosclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, and various pulmonary diseases such as asthma.
One of Dr. Muller's major contributions is the discovery of how two molecules, PECAM and CD99, are involved in diapedesis—the inflammatory process by which white blood cells move into neighboring tissue. He has shown that by blocking the function of PECAM, it is possible to block diapedesis, and thereby arrest inflammation. Similarly, blocking the function of CD99 also blocks diapedesis—but at a later stage, leaving white blood cells "stuck," halfway between the cells at the endothelial border.
"This grant will help us identify the role of CD99 in diapedesis, including the unusual, but probably important, instances when the molecules migrate through the endothelial cells rather than between them—a process called transcellular migration," said Dr. Muller. "We are especially interested in how white blood cells migrate through the cytoplasm of endothelial cells at the blood-brain barrier."
Dr. Muller's MERIT Award marks the second year in a row that faculty from Weill Cornell have been chosen for this highly prestigious honor. Dr. Aaron Marcus, professor of medicine and professor of medicine in pathology and laboratory medicine, received a $2.8 million NIH MERIT grant last year for his research in cell-cell interactions in thrombosis.
Photo by Weill Cornell Art & Photo.