Wewers, Mark

Mark D. Wewers, M.D. is Associate Director of the Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute and holds the John A. Prior Professorship in the College of Medicine where he is a member of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.

Mark has appointments in the Departments of Internal Medicine; Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics and in the Interdisciplinary Program in Biophysics.  He is also a member of the Integrated Biomedical Science Graduate Program. He joined the Ohio State faculty in 1986 after research training in the Pulmonary Branch at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. Mark currently is the recipient of NIH funding from the NHLBI and is director of an NIH training grant to study the Molecular Mechanisms of Lung Inflammation.  He has served as permanent member of the NIH Lung Biology Pathology A Study Section and is a frequent reviewer for the NIH.

Macrophage function in lung inflammatory conditions has been the central focus of Dr. Wewers’ investigations.  The laboratory has focused on innate immune mechanisms with interest in the regulation of cytokines, especially interleukin-1ß (IL-1ß), TNFa and IL-8.  Most recently work is centered on the regulation of caspase-1 by newly described members of the caspase-recruitment domain (CARD) family of innate immune signaling molecules.  Currently, the discovery of a signaling complex termed “the inflammasome” has prompted studies to understand the formation, composition and fate of the inflammasome’s components.  This work has been extended to the study of sepsis and septic shock in both humans and in murine models with emphasis upon the monocyte and macrophage.  Ongoing projects include measurement of a constellation of about 50 inflammation related genes by real time PCR technology, proteins quantifications by ELISA, and protein complex detection by immunoprecipitation reactions and yeast two-hybrid technology.  In addition, the laboratory is interested in the interaction of macrophages with intracellular pathogens. Recently, inflammasome and caspase-1 studies have focused on the marked ability of the intracellular pathogen, Francisella tularensis to induce caspase-1 activation.  

Selected Publications

Gavrilin, M. A., Bouakl, I. J., Knatz, N. L., Duncan, M. D., Hall, M. W., Gunn, J. S. & Wewers, M. D. (2006) Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 103, 141-146.  

Sarkar, A., Duncan, M., Hart, J., Hertlein, E., Guttridge, D. C. & Wewers, M. D. (2006) J Immunol 176, 4979-4986.  

Elssner, A., Duncan, M., Gavrilin, M. & Wewers, M. D. (2004) J Immunol 172, 4987-4994.  

Kim, H. J., Hart, J., Knatz, N., Hall, M. W. & Wewers, M. D. (2004) J Immunol 172, 4948-4955.  

Wewers, M. D. (2004) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci U. S. A 101, 10241-10242.

Laboratory Personnel

Contact
e-mail: wewers.2@osu.edu
phone: (614) 247-7707

110L DHLRI
473 W. 12th Ave.
Columbus, Ohio 43210