2012 Wylie Scholar
- Angela Ramirez
- Oct 9
- 2 min read
Katherine Gallagher, MD
John R. Pfeifer Collegiate Professor of Vascular Surgery
Professor of Surgery
Professor of Microbiology & Immunology
University of Michigan
Wylie Research Focus: To improve wound healing in patients with Type 2 diabetes, a severe problem that frequently leads to amputation
Date Awarded: 2012
“Due to the critical start‐up funding from the Wylie Scholarship Program, we have identified that epigenetic changes in the bone marrow predispose peripheral macrophages towards an inflammatory phenotype. Funding from the Wylie Scholarship Program has been instrumental in allowing me to gather preliminary data to secure much- needed funding from the National Institutes of Health and others.”
The goal of Dr. Gallagher’s research is to improve wound healing in patients with Type 2 diabetes, a severe problem that frequently leads to amputation. Although the concept that chronic inflammation is associated with impaired diabetic wound healing has been well‐accepted, no approach to date has been clinically effective in restoring the normal wound healing cascade in Type 2 diabetic wounds. These findings will improve our understanding of the chronic inflammation associated with diabetic wounds and enable development of new therapeutics.
In 2022, Dr. Gallagher was elected to the National Academy of Medicine for her innovative research on epigenetic regulation of immune cells. She is a fellow in the American Surgical Association and Vice Chair of Basic and Translational Science at the University of Michigan. In addition, she is a mentor to the 2019 Wylie Scholar Andrea Obi MD, the 2021 Wylie Scholar, Kevin Southerland MD and the 2022 Wylie Scholar, Tammy Nguyen MD PhD.
Dr. Gallagher has received major funding from the NIH (R01, U01), American Diabetes Association, and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. She most recently won the American Heart Association ATVB Werner Risau Early Career Investigator Award in Vascular Biology. She has been awarded over $19 million in funding since becoming a Wylie Scholar.
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