Research in the Section on Pulmonary, Critical Care,
Allergy & Immunological Diseases
Faculty in the Section on Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy & Immunological Diseases conduct a wide variety of clinical, translational, and molecular research programs within both the Section and the Center for Human Genomics (Co-Directors Eugene Bleecker, MD and Deborah Meyers, PhD). Among the ongoing clinical research activities are clinical trials in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that are performed in the Cloverdale Clinical Research facility (Eugene Bleecker, MD, Stephen Peters, MD, PhD, Wendy Moore, MD, Michael Larj, MD, Raj Chatterjee, MD), including a clinical site for the NHLBI's Asthma Clinical Research Network (PI Stephen Peters, MD, PhD), and the NHLBI Severe Asthma Research Program (PI Eugene R. Bleecker, MD), clinical, physiologic, and genetic characterizations of individuals at risk or exposed to potentially harmful occupational agents including asbestos (Director Jill Ohar, MD, Raj Chatterjee, MD). The Section also conducts clinical trials on acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), sepsis and pneumonia in the Intensive Care Units of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (Duncan Hite, MD and Peter Morris, MD), including serving as a clinical site for the NHLBI's ARDS Network. Evaluation of new techniques and devices used in interventional pulmonology are also performed by John Conforti, DO. Associates at Wake Forest University Department of Health Science along with members of our section are investigating behavioral/lifestyle modification intervention to improve the durability of benefits from pulmonary rehabilitation in COPD patients (Norman Adair, MD - NIH Grant, REACT II).
Translational, patient based work supported by the NHLBI is performed in the genetics of asthma, atopy, and related diseases (PIs Deborah Meyers, PhD and Eugene Bleecker, MD), and as part of an NHLBI Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) in asthma (PI Stephen Peters, MD, PhD).
Molecular investigations in the Section supported by the NIH include a program in airway smooth muscle and epithelial cell signal transduction (Raymond Penn, PhD and Rudy Pascual, MD), epithelial and mesenchymal cell biology in asthma (Stephen Peters, MD, PhD and Annette Hastie, PhD), and sequencing of genes associated with asthma, atopy and inflammation (Gregory Hawkins, PhD) and studies associating genetic haplotypes with diseases, disease-related phenotypes, and the response to medications used to treat these diseases (Eugene Bleecker, MD, Deborah Meyers, PhD, Gregory Hawkins, PhD, Timothy Howard, PhD, Stephen Peters, MD, PhD). Dr. Duncan Hite's laboratory works in collaboration with Drs. David Bass and Michael Seeds from the Department of Molecular Medicine who focus on phospholipase-mediated surfactant injury in asthma and ARDS and cell injury and death.
The Center for Human Genomics, which includes individuals in the Departments of Pediatrics, Biochemistry, and Public Health Sciences, as well as the Department of Internal Medicine, also has extensive, NIH-funded programs in the genetics of prostate cancer (PI Jianfeng Xu, MD, MPH), complications of diabetes (PI Donald Bowden, PhD), and cardiovascular diseases (PI David Herrington, MD, Timothy Howard, PhD).