Vladimir Didenko
Baylor College of Medicine, TX·Biochemistry
Every day the body clears away huge numbers of dying cells. This cleanup, called efferocytosis, is done by specialized immune 'eater' cells (phagocytes) and by neighboring tissue cells.
- Fields
Biochemistry
Microbiology & Immunology
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
efferocytosis
apoptosis
phagocytosis
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Develop an in situ assay for tissue sections that uses catalytic intermediates of the topoisomerase reaction as fluorescent probes for DNase II activity, and validate it in several models of dying-cell clearance.
- Build a FRET assay using topoisomerase-derived probes to label and measure efferocytosis in individual live cells, optimizing specificity and quantitative ability in cultured-cell models.
- Increase assay sensitivity with Ndots, advanced fluorescent tags, to reach single-molecule resolution and measure efferocytosis efficiency inside individual cells.
More about the research
How the cleanup happens matters a great deal. Depending on how dying cells are engulfed and digested, the process can calm the immune system or trigger inflammation and autoimmunity. It can also allow viral or tumor DNA to be released. Even so, no broad assay exists that can detect and measure efferocytosis across all the cell types that take part. This project aims to build one.
Why it matters
A reliable way to see and measure dying-cell clearance in tissues and live cells could help researchers study diseases in which this process goes wrong. The grant names autoimmune disorders, stroke, cancer and heart disease. The assay could also help in testing whether new therapies change how dying cells are cleared, giving drug developers and laboratory scientists a new imaging tool.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Joseph Falke
University of Colorado Boulder, CO·Biochemistry
Determine how Class 1 and Class 3 PI3K enzymes integrate calcium, receptor and G protein inputs, and whether these combine additively, synergistically or in opposition, using single-molecule TIRF microscopy on supported lipid bilayers.
Haiying Liu
Michigan Technological University, MI·Chemistry
Design and synthesize near-infrared BODIPY dye probes that emit two colors whose ratio reports viscosity, with improved water solubility, stability and ability to enter cells.
Maciej Stawikowski
Florida Atlantic University, FL·Chemistry
Design and synthesize environment-sensitive fluorescent cholesterol probes (CNDs) built on a 1,8-naphthalimide dye, using computational chemistry to tune their properties for different imaging uses.
The school
Baylor College of Medicine: 38 labs on PI Pages, $881M a year on research, 115 research doctorates a year.
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