Anesthesia Research 151 Zablocki Veterans Affairs Medical Center 5000 W. National Avenue Milwaukee, WI 53295 Phone: 414-384-2000 ext. 41394 Fax: 414-645-6550 mmerker@mcw.edu
Dr. Merker received a PhD in Pharmacology from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. She completed two Postdoctoral Fellowships. One Fellowship was completed with Brandeis University in the Department of Biochemistry and the second Fellowship was completed in the Departments of Anesthesiology and Pharmacology from Yale University.
The pulmonary endothelium plays an important role in determining the chemical composition of the plasma as the blood passes from the venous to the systemic arterial circulation. It does so in part by acting as a large chemical reactor surface comprised of transporters, receptors and enzymes that act on compounds carried in the blood.
Our research is focused on determining the consequences of, and mechanisms underlying, the interactions of the pulmonary endothelium with a variety of classes of blood borne substances including redox active pro- and antioxidant physiological, pharmacological and xenobiotic compounds. The approach involves using the isolated perfused rat and mice lung preparations, tissue cultures of pulmonary endothelial cells, and a range of biochemical, pharmacological, and mathematical modeling strategies to evaluate the relative roles of various processes (e.g., redox enzymes, cell membrane permeation, association of compounds with cell macromolecules) that contribute to the net effect of the endothelium on blood-borne substances. The goal of our laboratory is to elucidate pro- and antioxidant mechanisms involved in lung and vascular oxidative stress with the potential for identifying cellular redox processes for therapeutic manipulation in disease prevention and/or treatment.
To contact Dr. Merker, please call 414-384-2000 ext. 41394 or e-mail mmerker@mcw.edu.
Recent Publications