Christine Sorenson, PhD, Awarded Vilas Professorship

Chris Sorenson, PhD
Chris Sorenson, PhD

Congratulations to Christine Sorenson, PhD, who was recently awarded a Vilas Life Cycle Professorship, supported by the Women in Science & Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI) and the UW Office of the Provost. This 16-month award, in the amount of $40,000, supports her research entitled, “Bim, Inflammation and Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration.” Inflammation plays a causative role in the pathogenesis of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD), a major vision threatening disease. Unfortunately, the key regulatory events involved and how the recruitment, activation and clearance of macrophages are controlled during the pathogenesis of nAMD is not understood. This funding will allow us to determine how Bim, a cell death initiating Bcl-2 family member, modulates inflammation during nAMD, and whether its loss of expression contributes to standard of care therapeutic failure in patients.

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