Van Eldik receives MERIT award

Linda Jo Van Eldik, professor of cell and molecular biology, has been selected for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) award from the National Institute on Aging (NIA).

The MERIT award recognizes Van Eldik’s outstanding record of scientific achievements as a principal investigator on NIA research projects, her sustained contributions to aging research and her leadership and commitment to the field. Her research focuses on the cell and molecular biology of glial cells (astrocytes and microglia).

The MERIT award was given for her research on molecular mechanisms and modulation of glial activation.

This research includes identification of signal transduction pathways and gene expression changes that mediate the chronic inflammatory and oxidative stress responses of activated glia, elucidation of mechanisms to down-regulate these detrimental responses and determination of how glial-neuronal interactions influence neurodegenerative processes.

The long-term goal of her research is to gain insight into the molecular basis by which the chronic inflammatory responses of activated glia contribute to the neuropathology of Alzheimer's disease and how ligand modulation of these responses might be used as a rational basis for new therapeutic approaches.

Van Eldik, who joined Northwestern in 1994, is associate director of the Northwestern Alzheimer's Disease Core Center and is an investigator in the Northwestern Drug Discovery Program, the Buehler Center on Aging, the Northwestern University Institute for Neuroscience, The Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University and the Feinberg Clinical Neuroscience Research Institute.

She has served as a member (1991-1993) and chair (1993-1995) of the NIH neurological sciences-I study section, a member (1996-2000) of the NIA neurosciences aging review committee NIA-N, an external grant reviewer for various agencies and foundations and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Van Eldik is a member of the medical and scientific advisory board of the Alzheimer's Association and the scientific advisory board of the Institute for the Study of Aging.