Wells Center for Pediatric Research investigating blood-cell protein that bolsters immune system response

By Joe Stuteville

The National Institutes of Health awarded the five-year grant to investigators at the school’s Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research. It will enable them to study blood cell development and function. Their work centers on the role of Rac2, a protein found to be important in the function of phagocytic blood cells—special cells that produce agents that kill microbes—such as macrophages and granulocytes.

Herman B Wells Center, located in the IU Cancer Research Institute

Macrophages are specialized cells that engulf and destroy large particles such as bacteria, yeast and dying cells, and help rebuild damaged tissue. Granulocytes are white blood cells that provide the body’s defense against disease.

“These cells are important components of the immune system and are necessary to fight microbial infections, but they also can damage normal tissue,” said David G. Skalnik, principal investigator and professor of pediatrics, biochemistry and molecular biology.

“We are interested in studying the phagocytic substances because they have been implicated in causing some human diseases such as heart attacks, stroke, atherosclerosis and arthritis,” Skalnik added.

Other program investigators are Dr. Mary Dinauer, professor of pediatrics and medical and molecular genetics, and director of the Wells Center; Dr. Wade Clapp, associate professor of pediatrics and microbiology and immunology; Lawrence Quilliam, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology; Dr. Simon Atkinson, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and Dr. David Williams, a former Wells Center director who now is associated with the University of Cincinnati. A rather special breed of mice will aid Skalnik and his colleagues in their research. The mice, developed by Dinauer and Williams, lack a functional Rac2 gene and exhibit immune system defects.

“Although our research program is focused on basic science, the long-term results of our studies could provide novel approaches to control phagocyte function and thus control disease,” Skalnik said.

(Editor’s note: While the legacy of Wells lives on in schools and departments throughout the eight campuses of Indiana University, nothing would probably please him more than the projects emanating from the Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research, established in 1991 and bearing the late university chancellor’s name. The center is one of three housed at the IU Cancer Research Institute on the IUPUI campus.)