Dr. Bozho Todorich

Dr. Bozho Todorich was the recipient of the 2011 Marian Kies Award.Bozho received his PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in 2009. His graduate work was done in the Department of Neurosurgery, under guidance of Dr. James R. Connor, PhD.

Bozho's thesis work was focused on understanding mechanisms of iron acquisition by oligodendrocytes. Oligodendrocytes are the principal cell in CNS that stain for iron. Gestational and early postnatal iron deficiency leads to hypomyelination in both humans and animal models, which suggests that iron is important for oligodendrocyte development and myelination. Understanding mechanisms of iron acquisition is an important pre-requisite for developing effective supplementation strategies for iron deficiency. Even though traditionally iron transporter transferrin has been considered essential for survival of oligodendrocyte progenitors (OPCs), these cells continue to uptake iron in absence of transferrin, which suggested that they have an alternative mechanism of iron import. As part of his thesis project, Bozho demonstrated that oligodendrocytes bind and uptake ferritin, and in particular ferritin heavy chain, and that the cellular receptor for H-ferritin in oligodendrocytes is Tim-2. Furthermore, Bozho showed that ferritin was capable of delivering iron, and supporting survival and differentiation of oligodendrocytes independent of transferrin. Bozho's findings may have important clinical implications not just for iron deficiency, but other dysmyelinating disorders like Multiple Sclerosis.

Bozho will receive his MD degree at Penn State College of Medicine in May 2011. He will be pursuing a residency in ophthalmology at Duke Eye Center. His long term hope is to be an academic vitreoretinal surgeon and use his neurochemistry background to pursue research in retinal diseases.

 

 

 

 

Created 01/04/2012 BF