IU medical school also is recruiting two additional researchers and renovating laboratory space for the Program of Comparative Medicine. The program already has two laboratories devoted to animal stem cell research in rodents and zebrafish.
Yoder and his team of IU School of Medicine researchers focus on devastating diseases that affect children. Currently they use mouse models of a number of these illnesses.
Harm HogenEsch, head of the Purdue veterinary school's Department of Pathobiology and an immunopathology professor, said the Program of Comparative Medicine will focus on developing and using animal models of human diseases and on the comparative analysis of stem cells. Stem cells are immature cells that can develop into different types of cells. For instance, under special circumstances muscle stem cells will differentiate into fat cells, bone-forming cells, blood cells and endothelial cells -- the cells that form the lining in blood vessels, the heart and some other organs.
"This collaboration will allow us to be more competitive for federal grants from such sources as the National Institutes of Health," said HogenEsch, who co-directs the program with Yoder.
"Purdue is conducting really excellent, important research that links not just to animal health but also to human diseases," he said. "We've been doing this work for a long time, but it hasn't always been obvious. This program gives our research higher profile."
Other researchers involved in the Program of Comparative Medicine are:
From Purdue: Kevin Hannon, associate professor of basic medical sciences; Suresh Mittal, associate professor of veterinary pathobiology; Dina Andrews, assistant professor of veterinary
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Contact: Susan A. Steeves
ssteeves@purdue.edu
765-496-7481
Purdue University
4-Dec-2002