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Krause observed how Herzog was an exceptionally motivated and thoughtful pulmonologist when she first joined the laboratory and notes how she grew into a scientist with a clear and confident vision for her future as a physician-scientist.
“She tackled a challenging and controversial research question with remarkable determination. Her rigor, resilience, and intellectual maturity are reflected in the high-impact work she produced—including her first-author publication in Science. It was a privilege to watch Dr. Herzog evolve into the innovative and disciplined investigator she is today,” remarks Krause.
When Herzog completed the IMP program, she faced the decision of staying in the Krause lab to continue basic discovery or pursuing her career goal of translating complex clinical problems into potential treatments. One person she admired for bridging these two goals was Jack Elias, MD, chief of the Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine at the time. Elias had made patient-relevant discoveries for asthma and airways disease. Herzog met with him to discuss her options.
During their meeting, Elias invited Herzog to join his lab to study neuronal guidance proteins in pulmonary fibrosis. Herzog became a faculty member shortly thereafter, and over the last two decades, she has contributed to new ways to think about lung fibrosis. Elias has witnessed Herzog build on her experiences to become a world leader.
“Watching her clinical and scientific growth and evolving success has been one of the joys of my time at Yale and then Brown,” says Elias, Dean Emeritus and Warren Alpert Foundation Professor of Translational Science, professor of molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry, and professor of medicine at Brown University.
As a physician-scientist and pulmonologist, she has focused on understanding the intervenable mechanisms of chronic lung disease.
“When you develop a scar, and the wound doesn’t heal properly, the skin becomes thickened and does not function as it did before. When that happens in the lung, people have difficulty breathing. There’s no cure, and if the scarring progresses enough, patients can die,” says Herzog.
Her seminal insights revolve around the involvement of innate immunity in pulmonary fibrosis and the neurobiology of the disease. Herzog’s discoveries have furthered understanding of how macrophages are a critical driver of fibrosis and how substances released by injured cells can also contribute to the disease. As part of this work, she discovered that the nervous system develops aberrant communication with the lung during fibrosis, demonstrating a previously unrecognized biology with enormous ramifications for treatment.
During this time she has transitioned from mentee to mentor and finds herself cherishing the role she was once in.
