Northwestern University’s Deborah Winter, PhD, has been awarded a $50,000 ATS/Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals Research Fellowship in Sarcoidosis to help fund her study, “Targeting Macrophage Subpopulations in Sarcoidosis.”

Sarcoidosis is a chronic granulomatous inflammatory disease that occurs in about 15 to 40 per 100,000 people in the US, with a disproportionately higher rate observed in people of African American and Northern European descent, according to the ATS. Approximately one-third of patients have a progressive form of the disease characterized by chronic, unremitting inflammation in multiple organ systems.

“Dr. Winter identified three distinct populations of alveolar macrophages in the lungs from patients with newly diagnosed, untreated pulmonary sarcoidosis,” said Karen Ridge, PhD, who chairs the body that provides oversight of the grant application process at the ATS. “Her novel proposal will disrupt genes in these macrophage populations to determine the effect on granuloma formation. The successful completion of her work will indicate which macrophage subpopulations are critical to the development of sarcoidosis. This will enable the field to test potential therapeutic targets to specifically modify these macrophage populations.” 

“Mallinckrodt is honored to support ATS with this research grant and pleased that it will fund Dr. Winter’s study to better understand sarcoidosis and the causes of this difficult to treat disease,” said Steve Romano, MD, executive vice president and chief scientific officer at Mallinckrodt. “We look forward to seeing the results of this important work.”