Richard Merkhofer Receives F30 Grant from NIH

Congratulations to Richard Merkhofer, graduate student in the Klein Laboratory, on funding of his Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship (F30) for MD/PhD and Other Dual Degrees from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIH-NIMHD). This 4-year, fellowship, in the amount of $161,276, is under the sponsorship of Bruce Klein, MD, and the purpose is to enhance the integrated research and clinical training of promising predoctoral students who are matriculated in a combined MD/PhD or other dual-doctoral degree training program, and who intend careers as physician-scientists or other clinician-scientists. Richard’s project, “Pathogenesis of fungal infectious disease in the Hmong population,” will study the in-born susceptibility known to exist in the Hmong population, to the dimorphic fungal disease blastomycosis. His research will characterize how variation in the immune response leads to pathology in the Hmong population, which may identify novel targets for precise medical treatment of disease related to dysregulation of the IL-17 response, which includes fungal infections, autoimmune diseases, and cancer.