Hu receives $1.9M NIH MIRA award
UIC faculty member Ying S. Hu is a recipient of the prestigious Maximizing Investigator Research Award (MIRA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Hu, an assistant professor of chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, will use the grant in the next five years to develop ultrasensitive imaging tools to precisely characterize the spatial and temporal cytokine release from immune T cells. Cytokines are a broad range of small signaling proteins utilized by immune cells in cell-to-cell communications. Dysregulated cytokine release contributes to acute and long-term conditions, from life-threatening cytokine release syndrome to delayed wound healing. The research program will leverage innovative superresolution imaging techniques to enhance the fundamental understanding of cytokine release at the molecular level and enable the search for membrane mechanisms to modulate the process.