Enrico Novelli
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder that affects millions of people and causes sudden, severe pain episodes called vaso-occlusive crises. In mice with the disease, these crises arise from "hyperadhesion": blood cells and the inner lining of blood vessels make too many sticky surface molecules, so cells clump and block vessels.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biomedical Engineering
Physiology
- Topics
sickle cell disease
vaso-occlusive crisis
positron emission tomography
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2027
What they work on
- Determine whether hemin, a toxic breakdown product of hemoglobin, and hypoxia (low oxygen) trigger VLA-4-driven blood-cell stickiness in sickle cell mice, measured by PET imaging with the tracer 64Cu-LLP2A.
- Compare 64Cu-LLP2A uptake in sickle cell mice treated with a P-selectin-blocking antibody versus voxelotor, a drug that reduces red cell breakdown and may lower stickiness indirectly.
- Image patients with sickle cell disease using 64Cu-LLP2A PET before and after crizanlizumab treatment to test whether the scan measures hyperadhesion and its decrease with therapy.
More about the research
Drugs that block these sticky molecules exist, but doctors cannot see hyperadhesion in patients or predict who will respond. One such drug, crizanlizumab, works in only about half of patients, is costly and can cause severe reactions.
Why it matters
People with sickle cell disease, a largely underserved and minority population, have no test that shows the vessel-blocking stickiness behind their pain crises. A PET marker for VLA-4 could help doctors pick patients likely to benefit from costly drugs such as crizanlizumab and track whether treatment is working. It could also give clinical trials of new anti-crisis drugs a way to measure response.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Rafal Pawlinski
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Medicine & Clinical Research
Identify the disease-specific triggers that activate Factor XII, a protein that starts blood clotting, in sickle cell disease, using blood samples from patients and a mouse model of the disease.
Renee Manworren
University of Texas at Arlington, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research
Collect pain-related gene variants, NIH HEAL common data elements, social determinants of health and other biopsychosocial data over time from 1,000 Black adolescents and young adults with sickle cell disease in three U.S. regions.
Kenneth Ataga
University of Tennessee Health Science Center, TN·Medicine & Clinical Research
Build a machine learning model that predicts chronic kidney disease progression in adults with sickle cell disease, using data from a prospective, multicenter study.
The school
University of Pittsburgh: 83 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 403 research doctorates a year.
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