Ensign Professor has unveiled mechanisms shared by the vascular and nervous systems

Anne Eichmann, Ph.D., newly designated Ensign Professor of Cardiology, explores the factors that determine where the cells in blood vessels and lymphatic vessels grow, as well as how the vascular and nervous systems influence each other’s growth and function. She has discovered that common molecular cues direct growth of blood vessels and nerves, opening new possibilities for directing blood vessel growth toward infarcted tissue or away from growing tumors. Eichmann is currently studying that link in diseases affecting both systems, notably diabetes.

Eichmann obtained her M.Sc. at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and a Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology from Université Paris 13. After postdoctoral work, she moved to the Collège de France, where she was Inserm Avenir Young Investigator from 2001 to 2006 and a research director for Inserm since 2002. She joined the Yale faculty in 2010.

Her research has won her numerous honors, including a Lillian Bettencourt Prize for Life Sciences, the Chevalier de L’ordre National du Mérite, and the Jean Bernard Award from the Medical Research Foundation. She has served on the Inserm Scientific Research Council, the European Research Council, and the Fondation Lefoulon Delalande fellowship board, and the editorial boards of Physiology Reviews and Endothelium. She has been elected council member of the North American Vascular Biology Organization.