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Rosen, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Receive NIH Merit Award for Poisonous Heavy Metal Arsenic

The National Institutes of Health's National Institute of General Medical Sciences has awarded a $2.2 million MERIT Award to Barry Rosen , Ph.D.  in  the Wayne State University School of  Medicine 's Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology .

Dr. Rosen's research involves the cellular uptake and detoxification of the poisonous heavy metal arsenic. The project, now in its 22nd year, has discovered the way arsenic is taken into cells, and the ways that cells protect themselves from this toxic metal. Nearly a decade ago, Rosen identified the transport protein that brings arsenic into bacterial cells.

These proteins, called aquaporins, are also responsible for uptake of water and other nutrients into cells. Importantly, some drugs that are used to treat leukemia or infectious diseases contain arsenic or a related metal, antimony.

Dr. Rosen and his collaborators have shown that these drugs are also transported by aquaporins, which has proven to be of importance in understanding their mechanism of action. In addition, his laboratory has identified the transport systems that remove arsenic from cells as a way of detoxification.

Initiated in 1987, the MERIT (Method to Extend Research in Time) Award program extends funding for up to 10 years to a select number of investigators who have demonstrated superior competence and productivity during their previous research endeavors. The award to Rosen is also renewable for an additional five years, for potential total funding of $4.4 million. 

For more information, please see www.med.wayne.edu/biochem/rosenlab.

With more than 1,000 medical students, the Wayne State University School of Medicine is among the nation's largest institutions of its kind. Together with its clinical partners, the Wayne State University Physician Group, the Detroit Medical Center and other area health care providers, the school is a leader in medical research and patient care with emphases on cancer, maternal and child health, neurosciences, and population studies and urban health.

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