SIU Med School Receives NIH Grant to Study Diabetes

A research scientist at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield has been awarded a two-year federal grant from the National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disorders (NIDDK) for the study of the inflammatory process in Type 1 diabetes. The total budget for the grant is $214,500.

Mary Pauza, Ph.D., assistant professor of medical microbiology, immunology and cell biology, is the principal investigator for the project.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that results from an inflammatory process that ultimately kills the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. The destructive process is caused by the body's T-cells. The study is looking at understanding how two molecules, called chemokines, might work independently and together to attract T-cells to sites of inflammation. This research has important implications for understanding the inflammatory process of the disease and for future development of therapeutic agents that would block the autoimmune process.

This is the first federal grant for Pauza's research. Her research at SIU now totals more than $944,000 and includes other projects aimed at acquiring a better understanding of the disease processes that occur during the development of type 1 diabetes.

Pauza joined the SIU faculty in 2000 after completing a two-year postdoctoral fellowship sponsored by the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation International while a research associate in immunology with the Scripps Research Institute in LaJolla, Calif. (1996-2000). She earned her doctorate and master's from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis (1996, 1992). Pauza earned her bachelor's at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln (1981).

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