The Center for Advanced Microbiome Research and Innovation (CAMRI) at the Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) is pleased to announce that Dr. Bing Ma, Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at UMSOM and CAMRI faculty member, has been awarded a competitive grant through the Milken Institute Science Philanthropy Accelerator for Research and Collaboration (SPARC) program. The award supports a collaborative project with Dr. Wonder Drake, a leading clinician-scientist at UMSOM specializing in sarcoidosis and interstitial lung disease.
Accelerating Translation Through the SPARC Program
The SPARC program was established by the Milken Institute to accelerate high-impact biomedical research by connecting philanthropic capital with innovative, collaborative science. SPARC prioritizes projects that bridge discovery and clinical application, foster cross-disciplinary collaboration, and generate tangible outcomes, such as biomarkers, diagnostics, and therapeutic strategies, that can be rapidly translated to patient care.
Dr. Ma’s project aligns squarely with SPARC’s mission by integrating metabolomics, immunology, and clinical cohorts to address a critical unmet need in pulmonary medicine.
Addressing an Urgent Clinical Gap in Sarcoidosis
Sarcoidosis is a complex inflammatory disease with highly variable outcomes. While some patients experience spontaneous resolution, others progress to chronic disease and irreversible pulmonary fibrosis, leading to significant morbidity and loss of lung function. Clinicians currently lack reliable blood-based tools to predict disease trajectory at diagnosis, and no therapies have been proven to halt disease progression.
The funded project, “Prognostic and Mechanistic Metabolomic Drivers of Sarcoidosis Progression,” aims to change this.
Using prospective patient cohorts at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and UMSOM, the team will profile circulating metabolites at diagnosis and during longitudinal follow-up to identify a blood-based biomarker panel that predicts clinical outcomes early in disease. In parallel, mechanistic studies in primary human immune cells will test whether these metabolites actively drive pathogenic immune responses, specifically T-helper 17 signaling pathways involving PD-1 and STAT3, and whether downstream signals promote collagen production by human lung fibroblasts.
Critically, the study will also evaluate whether blocking metabolite uptake can interrupt this profibrotic signaling, enabling mechanism-based therapeutic strategies with favorable safety profiles.
A Powerful Collaborative Effort
Dr. Ma brings deep expertise in microbiome, metabolomics, systems biology, and data-driven biomarker discovery, while Dr. Drake contributes internationally recognized leadership in sarcoidosis research, patient cohorts, and translational lung immunology. Together, their collaboration exemplifies CAMRI’s commitment to team science that connects molecular mechanisms to patient-focused outcomes.
The anticipated deliverables include a clinically deployable prognostic assay and actionable therapeutic targets, tools that could fundamentally improve how sarcoidosis is diagnosed, monitored, and treated.
Advancing CAMRI’s Mission
“This award reflects the strength of collaborative, translational research at CAMRI and UMSOM,” said Dr. Ma. “By combining metabolomic profiling with mechanistic validation in human cells, we aim to move beyond association and toward interventions that can truly change patient outcomes.”
CAMRI congratulates Drs. Ma and Drake on this achievement and looks forward to the impact this work will have on sarcoidosis patients and the broader field of immune-mediated lung disease.