Newswise — (New York, NY) – Feb. 5, 2018 – Deborah Winter, PhD, of Northwestern University has been awarded the new ATS Foundation/Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals Research Fellowship in Sarcoidosis. 

The $80,000 award will help fund “the application of innovative genomic technologies to study the pathogenesis of sarcoidosis by focusing on macrophages, a key cell type in the formation of granulomas,” said Dr. Winter. “Our approach will form the basis of an ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration between clinical and basic scientists.”

Sarcoidosis is an inflammatory disorder involving multiple organs, and the causes and pathogenesis are unknown. Research offers patients and their families hope. According to Sarcoidosis Patient-Advocate Trina Massey Davis, “Sarcoidosis may be a ‘snowflake disease,’ but living with it hits like an avalanche. We need everyone’s help to dig us out.”

“This grant, a partnership between the ATS and Mallinckrodt, will provide critical resources to investigators working to improve the lives of our patients,” noted ATS Foundation member Eric White, MD, MS, director of Translational Interstitial Lung Disease Research in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, upon the announcement of the research fellowship in 2017.

“Mallinckrodt helped establish this fellowship for research in sarcoidosis so we can facilitate the discovery of new insights for health care providers and for patients living with this rare disease,” said Tunde Otulana, MD, senior vice president and chief medical officer of Mallinckrodt. "We are proud to support the ATS Foundation in its commitment to research and the work of Dr. Winter. We believe these types of collaborations can play a vital role in the advancement of pulmonary health science.”

Mallinckrodt is a global business that develops, manufactures, markets and distributes specialty pharmaceutical products and therapies. Areas of focus include autoimmune and rare diseases in specialty areas like neurology, rheumatology, nephrology, pulmonology and ophthalmology; immunotherapy and neonatal respiratory critical care therapies; and analgesics.

Learn more about the ATS Foundation/Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals Research Fellowship, and additional fellowship opportunities on our website.

 

About the ATS Foundation
Since 2004, the ATS Foundation Research Program has awarded more than $16 million to 210 investigators who have gone on to secure $215 million in federal funding. That’s a return on investment of $13 per dollar awarded. Without this “seed” support, these researchers may not have received their subsequent grants, advancing our understanding of diseases in pulmonary, critical care and sleep. You can learn more about our awardees here.