Macrophage Cytological Profiling and Anti-Inflammatory Drug Discovery

Millions of people are affected by diseases and conditions related to the immune system. Unfortunately, our current supply of approved anti-inflammatory medicine is very limited and only treats a small fraction of inflammatory diseases. Nearly half of the drugs on the market today are natural products and natural product derivatives. The long-term objective of my research is to continue efforts toward the discovery of diverse chemical compounds and their mechanism of action (MOA) to inspire the next generation of novel therapeutics. This project approaches this objective by creating a robust platform for the in-depth phenotypic profiling of complex natural product samples with respect to their effect on pathways related to the innate immune response. This approach has the potential to elucidate the MOAs of novel natural products relevant to inflammation and accelerate the pace of drug discovery in this therapeutic area.