VCU molecular immunologist wins international research award

By Erin Lucero
Office of Development, School of Medicine

Christopher L. Kepley, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology in the Department of Internal Medicine, has been honored as the winner of this year's Henning Løwenstein Research Award.

The molecular immunologist accepted the award on April 22 during the opening reception of the Fifth Symposium on Specific Allergy in London, England. The annual award is given to a young scientist who has shown excellence within the field of allergy and carries a personal monetary prize of €10,000, or about $12,000.

With a focus on a field that has seen significant increases in recent decades, Kepley is primarily interested in the possibility of turning off allergic reactions by targeting key players in the immune system: mast cells and basophils.

Toward that goal, he and Andrew Saxon, M.D., a colleague at the University of California-Los Angeles, have developed a genetically engineered molecule that short-circuits allergic reactions. The co-creators reported in a 2002 Nature Medicine publication that the molecule, dubbed GE2, acts as a brake on the release of the allergy-triggering histamine. Called "an entirely new approach" by Anthony Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the research is continuing under a grant from the National Institutes of Health, on which Kepley serves as co-investigator with UCLA's Dr. Saxon.

In related research supported by the MCV Campus-based A.D. Williams Fund, Kepley is leading a pilot project to study the effect of air pollutants on allergic reaction. His research also has been funded by the American Lung Association and the Francis Family Foundations.

In 2001, Kepley was named the first recipient of the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology's Award for Outstanding Research Published by a Developing Researcher in the academy's publication, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Kepley, who earned his Ph.D. from VCU's School of Medicine in 1995, was named to a faculty position in the medical school after completing a post-doctoral stint at the University of New Mexico.

Former recipients of the award include 2003 winner Dr. Erika Ganglberger from the University of Vienna, Austria, Dr. Miriam Fleur Moffatt from the University of Oxford, UK in 2002, and Dr. Eckard Hamelmann from Humboldt University, Denmark in 2001.