Principal Investigator/ProgramDirector (Last,first, middle): Little, Frederic F. 5. Environment and Institutional Commitment ot the Candidate: Frederic Little, M.D. Description of Institutional Environment The Boston University Pulmonary Center has a nationally recognized research program in Pulmonary Immunology. The program was begun in 1978 when I joined the faculty at Boston University and has grown to ten M.D. and Ph.D. faculty members whose laboratories are specifically devoted to inflammation and immune responses in the lung. This program is one of the largest immunology groups based primarily in a Pulmonary Section and now has 6 senior full Professor faculty (Hardy Komfeld, M.D., William Cmikshank, Ph.D., Jeffrey Berman, M.D., John Bemardo, M.D., Matthew Fenton, Ph.D., David Center, M.D.) and 5 junior - mid level faculty (Yujun Zhang, Ph.D., Jussi Saukkonen, M.D., Michael Ieong, M.D., Thomas Ryan, Ph.D.) who provide an unusually fertile environment for learning and discussion. The Pulmonary Immunology Group, within the Pulmonary Center is funded by a P01 from the NIAID in animal models of Asthma, and 8 R01's and numerous awards from private sources. The extended environment includes a long time collaborator and formal member of our P01, Dr. Ann Marshak-Rothstein, a recognized expert in auto-immune disease, mouse genetics and mouse bone marrow chimeric models. Thus, the environment is rich in intellectual support for the proposal with extensive experience in the animal models, transgenic animals, animal physiology, basic immune responses of Thl and Th2 cells. Of course, the environment is particularly rich in expertise in the biology of Interleukin-16, the topic of Dr. Little's award as this interleukin was discovered by Drs. Center and Cruikshank and cloned by Dr. Kornfeld. Almost all the known reagents now used commercially were developed in this laboratory and this laboratory is widely considered the world's authority on the biology and immunology of IL-16. All members of the program interact weekly through two formal laboratory meetings and journal clubs. The environment is ideally suited for Dr. Little to gain expertise in mouse genetics and transgenics, bone marrow chimeras, airway physiology and basic Thl and Th2 immune responses. He presents his work-in-progess informally each week and formally every few months to the groups at large. Institutional Commitment to the Candidate's Research Career Development A. As Division Chief in Pulmonary Medicine I take responsibility for the institutional commitment to Dr. Little's research career development. This includes my explicit guarantee that I will continue to protect 80% of his time for research for the duration of his award. During all the time of the award, clinical in- and out- patient activities are limited. He has no formal teaching nor administrative responsibilities. Dr. Little is currently an Instructor in Medicine with a full time appointment in the Department of Medicine. I anticipate that he will be promoted to Assistant Professor of Medicine within the coming 12 months. B. I have assigned Dr. Little the equivalent of 300 sq. feet of laboratory wet bench space in the Pulmonary Center open laboratories with shared facilities including most traditional heavy equipment, small animal physiology facility, nucleotide sequenator, Real time PCR, FACS, laser capture, Mass Spec. protein analysis, small animal physiology and breeding facility, sophisticated immunocytochemistry etc. In addition, he has 150 sq. ft. of office space contiguous with other pulmonary faculty members with shared secretarial and computer facilities. C. As a commitment to Dr. Little's K08 award application I set aside specific time each week for his mentorship. This is designated, scheduled time free from teaching, clinical duties, administrative work and other research responsibilities. This time will be spent with primary data analysis, planning for new experiments, career planning, data presentation, etc. This time is independent of all the usual time spent discussing data, writing manuscripts, preparing presentations, etc. David M. Center, M.D. Gordon and Ruth Snider Professor of Pulmonary Medicine Chief, Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine PHS 398/2590 (Rev. 05/01) Page 'LO_ Continuation Format Page Numberpagesconsecutivelyat the bottomthroughouthe applicationD. o no._u_stesuffixessuch as 3a, 3b. ========================================Section End===========================================
| Summer, R; Little, F F; Ouchi, N et al. (2008) Alveolar macrophage activation and an emphysema-like phenotype in adiponectin-deficient mice. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol 294:L1035-42 |
