---

Marian Kies Memorial Award for 2004
Dr. Michael Fox

 

Dr. Michael Fox was the recipient of the 2004 Marian Kies Award. The focus of his Ph.D. work centered on determining the function of phosphodiesterase-Ia/autotaxin (PD-Ia/ATX). Babette Fuss, his Ph.D. advisor, had previously discovered that oligodendrocytes express and release PD-Ia/ATX during the onset of myelination. Based on the presence of PD-Ia/ATX in the extracellular matrix surrounding oligodendrocytes and some of its structural motifs (i.e. somatomedin B domains and an RGD tripeptide) he initially hypothesized that PD-Ia/ATX was an adhesion molecule necessary for oligodendrocytes during myelination. He designed experiments to test this, only to discover that PD-Ia/ATX was capable of antagonizing oligodendrocyte-adhesion to other known extracellular glycoproteins. Additionally, he discovered that this adhesion-antagonizing function of PD-Ia/ATX required intracellular signaling. Subsequently, he began studies to determine how PD-Ia/ATX alters oligodendrocyte adhesion. During the final years of his graduate work, he found that PD-Ia/ATX alters focal adhesion kinase (FAK) phosphorylation at tyrosine-925 and reorganizes focal adhesion formation. By applying an x-irradiation paradigm he showed that similar reductions in the phosphorylation of FAK-925 were observed in vivo at the onset of myelination when PD-Ia/ATX expression was upregulated. The results of his graduate student studies, led him to classify PD-Ia/ATX as a member of the matricellular family of molecules. While all structurally distinct, matricellular molecules are secreted macromolecules capable of initiating intracellular signaling that reduces cell adhesion to known ECM constituents. Previously described matricellular molecules have been shown to be critically involved in morphogenesis, therefore, his hypothesis is that PD-Ia/ATX may be a regulator of oligodendrocyte morphogenesis at the onset of myelination.