Lee Ann MacMillan-Crow, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Pharmacology/Toxicology, has been named director of TRI’s Novel Methodologies and Pilot Studies Program.
As director, MacMillan-Crow will play a key role in the promotion of translational research through the administration of TRI’s annual pilot funding program. TRI funds translational research at all levels, from basic science to clinical trials of new therapeutics, and community-based interventions. The program has awarded $3.6 million to UAMS researchers over the last five years.
MacMillan-Crow is program director of the Interdisciplinary Toxicology PhD Program and a standing member on the Surgery, Anesthesiology, and Trauma Study Section at NIH. Her laboratory has been funded by the NIH since 2001 and has a long-term interest in oxidant generation and mitochondrial damage during renal ischemia/reperfusion, as it relates to transplantation injury.
In addition, her research is examining the therapeutic potential of several agents to block renal mitochondrial injury during warm and cold ischemia, using rat, porcine, and a human model of transplantation. This research has led to a Use Patent and pending Phase II Small Business Grant from NIH. Another recent area of study in collaboration with Philip Mayeux, Ph.D., supported by an NIH RO1 grant, is related to the role that mitochondrial superoxide has on mitochondrial and renal damage during sepsis.
MacMillan-Crow earned her doctorate from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1994 and moved to UAMS in 2003. She has served as primary mentor to 10 graduate students and served on 18 dissertation committees.