Regenerative medicine holds immense promise for treating damaged and diseased tissues. One way to achieve this goal is to identify tissue-specific stem cells, which when introduced into organs, will stimulate regeneration. Alternatively, identification of triggers that stimulate tissue-specific progenitor cells will lead to development of small molecules or biologics to enhance the endogenous programs of tissue regeneration. Although experimental support exists for both therapeutic strategies, the molecular signals that trigger regenerative processes remain largely unknown. Although activation of the immune system, a universal response to injury, is a good candidate for triggering the tissue regeneration, the molecular pathways that directly link the immune system to progenitor cell biology remain poorly understood. We hypothesize that the ability of macrophages to penetrate tissue sites, integrate environmental inputs and transmit regenerative signals ideally positions these cells to be the central orchestrators of the regenerative response. In this model, recruited macrophages would form a mobile niche for tissue-specific progenitor cells, performing pleiotropic functions via enactment of distinct activation programs in spatially- and temporally-defined manner. Consistent with this view, our preliminary data show that deployment and activation of macrophages is essential for coordinating tissue regeneration after injury, including clearance of debris, activation and proliferation of tissue-specific stem cells, and differentiation of committed progenitors. Thus, the NIH Director's Pioneer Award Program will allow me to test the universality of these findings and to delineate molecular pathways for stimulating the endogenous programs of tissue regeneration, studies which collectively will be transformative for the field of regenerative medicine. Public Health Relevance Macrophages, the sentinels of host defense, are also the first cells to be recruited to site

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Office of The Director, National Institutes of Health (OD)
Type
NIH Director’s Pioneer Award (NDPA) (DP1)
Project #
5DP1OD006415-02
Application #
7938826
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZGM1-NDPA-B (02))
Program Officer
Jones, Warren
Project Start
2009-09-30
Project End
2010-11-14
Budget Start
2010-08-01
Budget End
2010-11-14
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$240,447
Indirect Cost
Name
Stanford University
Department
Internal Medicine/Medicine
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
009214214
City
Stanford
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
94305
Kutyavin, Vassily I; Chawla, Ajay (2016) Insulin Signaling in a Bit of a Jam. Cell 165:264-5
Qiu, Yifu; Nguyen, Khoa D; Odegaard, Justin I et al. (2014) Eosinophils and type 2 cytokine signaling in macrophages orchestrate development of functional beige fat. Cell 157:1292-308
Odegaard, Justin I; Chawla, Ajay (2013) The immune system as a sensor of the metabolic state. Immunity 38:644-54
Odegaard, Justin I; Chawla, Ajay (2013) Pleiotropic actions of insulin resistance and inflammation in metabolic homeostasis. Science 339:172-7
Heredia, Jose E; Mukundan, Lata; Chen, Francis M et al. (2013) Type 2 innate signals stimulate fibro/adipogenic progenitors to facilitate muscle regeneration. Cell 153:376-88
Wynn, Thomas A; Chawla, Ajay; Pollard, Jeffrey W (2013) Macrophage biology in development, homeostasis and disease. Nature 496:445-55
Odegaard, Justin I; Chawla, Ajay (2012) Leukocyte set points in metabolic disease. F1000 Biol Rep 4:13
Chawla, Ajay; Nguyen, Khoa D; Goh, Y P Sharon (2011) Macrophage-mediated inflammation in metabolic disease. Nat Rev Immunol 11:738-49
Odegaard, Justin I; Chawla, Ajay (2011) Alternative macrophage activation and metabolism. Annu Rev Pathol 6:275-97
Wu, Davina; Molofsky, Ari B; Liang, Hong-Erh et al. (2011) Eosinophils sustain adipose alternatively activated macrophages associated with glucose homeostasis. Science 332:243-7

Showing the most recent 10 out of 15 publications