Rate My Professor Norbert Leitinger

Norbert Leitinger is a Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He earned his PhD from the University of Vienna. As Associate Director of the Robert M. Berne Cardiovascular Research Center, Leitinger, an internationally renowned vascular immunologist and lipid chemist, has made key contributions to understanding the biological effects of lipid oxidation products in the activation of macrophages, endothelial cells, and other cell types in diabetes, obesity, atherosclerosis, and wound repair. His research spans disciplines including biochemistry, cardiovascular biology, immunology, metabolism, and molecular pharmacology.

Leitinger's primary research interests focus on the role of lipid oxidation products in inflammation and vascular immunology in atherosclerosis and diabetes. His laboratory demonstrates that phospholipid oxidation products (OxPL), generated by oxidation of cellular membranes, lipoproteins, and during apoptosis, serve as danger signals modulating inflammation and innate immune activation. Certain OxPL negatively regulate innate immune responses by blocking endotoxin-Toll-like receptor-4 interactions. Current projects delineate pathways distinguishing OxPL (altered self) from pathogen-associated molecular patterns like LPS (non-self), examine how OxPL resolve acute inflammation or propagate chronic states, and investigate monocyte specificity in chronic inflammation. Additional work explores peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors' anti-inflammatory effects through heme oxygenase-1 induction in the vascular wall. Techniques include quantitative RT-PCR, promoter-reporter assays, siRNA, HPLC, ESI-MS, flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry, and mouse inflammation models. In 2023, Leitinger received a $2.5 million NIH grant to study acetyl-CoA carboxylase isoforms in metabolic inflammation control using genetic, bioenergetic, metabolomic, and lipidomic approaches in macrophages and infection models. Key publications encompass 'Nucleotides released by apoptotic cells act as a find-me signal to promote phagocytic clearance' (2009), 'Structural identification by mass spectrometry of oxidized phospholipids in minimally oxidized low density lipoprotein that induce monocyte/endothelial interactions' (1997), 'Lipid oxidation products have opposite effects on calcifying vascular cell and bone cell differentiation' (1997), 'Identification of a novel macrophage phenotype that develops in response to atherogenic phospholipids via Nrf2' (2010), and 'Monoclonal autoantibodies specific for oxidized phospholipids or oxidized phospholipid–protein adducts inhibit macrophage uptake of oxidized low-density lipoproteins' (1999).