Congratulations to Ed Miao for being elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI). The ASCI is a nonprofit medical honor society composed of more than 3,000 physician-scientists from all medical specialties.The Society is dedicated to the advancement of research that extends understanding of diseases and improves treatment, and members are committed to mentoring future generations of physician-scientists.
Ed's lab at Duke broadly studies regulated cell death as a defense against infection. They study a broad array of pathogens. They discovered ubiquitous environmental pathogens that are eliminated by pyroptosis so efficiently that they never cause symptomatic infection in immunocompetent hosts (Burkholderia thailandensis and Chromobacterium violaceum). In contrast, bona fide pathogens (e.g. Salmonella and Listeria) typically evolved to evade pyroptotic defenses, enabling them to cause disease in immunocompetent people. By comparing bona fide pathogens to environmental pathogens, the team is elucidating the evolutionary importance of regulated cell death as an immunologic defense.