Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine Research

Research in the Emory Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine covers a broad range of topics, including metabolomic analyses of nutritional and environmental factors in human health and disease; the basic mechanisms of lung development and the factors that control lung inflammation, injury, and repair/regeneration; and clinical/epidemiological studies in asthma, cystic fibrosis, pulmonary fibrosis, tuberculosis, and sepsis.

This work is currently funded by federal (National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense), industry and biotechnology companies and private foundation grants. It involves the use of diverse statistical and epidemiological techniques needed for the analysis of large national databases, and for conducting multicenter clinical trials. In addition, it takes advantage of sophisticated basic science methodologies including DNA macro- and microarrays, gene and protein delivery techniques, strategies for the inhibition of gene/protein functions, and models of lung disease using genetically engineered animals.

View a list of pulmonary, allergy, and sleep medicine clinical trials.

• Clinical Biomarkers Lab: The Dean Jones/Young-Mi Go Lab

• Pulmonary/Chronic lung allograft dysfunction: The Lama Lab

• Pulmonary Cell Physiology: The Koval Lab

Acute Lung Injury/Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS)

Acute lung injury (ALI) is a form of acute respiratory failure, defined by hypoxemia and the presence of bilateral infiltrates on chest radiographs, and often referred to by its most severe subset known as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).  ALI occurs in approximately 200,000 people each year in the U.S. and, in some centers, occurs in more than 25% of mechanically ventilated patients.  There are various inciting causes for ALI and ARDS, which have the common theme of oxidative stress and inflammation, producing an acute inflammatory lung disease with consequent abnormal alveolar-capillary permeability and proteinaceous pulmonary edema, and clinically manifest as hypoxemia, reduced lung compliance, and respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation.  Our clinical critical care research group has been involved in ALI/ARDS research for more than a decade, and we have an active screening process to identify ALI/ARDS patients for inclusion in an ongoing registry.  We have investigated aspects of ALI/ARDS varying from epidemiology to predictive and prognostic biomarkers and genetic polymorphisms to treatment interventions.

• Philip Yang MD, MS
• Maxwell Weinmann, MD MBBS
• Gregory Martin, MD, MSc
• Annette Kalifeh Esper, MD, MSc,

Alcohol and Lung Biology

Research Lab: Koval Lab

• David Guidot, MD
• Samantha Yeligar, MS, PhD
• Ashish Mehta, MD, MSc
• Bashar Staitieh, MD
• Michael Koval, PhD
• Viranuj Sueblinvong, MD
  

Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology

Research Lab: Lee Lab

• Frances Lee, MD
• Wendy Neveu MD, PhD
  

Bronchiectasis

• Colin Swenson, MD
• Randy Hunt, MD
• Jamie Felzer, MD
• Erin Barton, NP

Cystic Fibrosis 

Cystic Fibrosis is a complicated, multi-organ disease with a plethora of functional defects, although most of the morbidity and mortality associated with CF results from the progressive loss of lung function. CF lung disease is due to chronic inflammation, persistent infection, impaired mucociliary clearance, and susceptibility to damage from oxidative stress. For more information about this topic, visit the Adult Cystic Fibrosis Program. 

• William Hunt, MD
• Viranuj Sueblinvong, MD

Exposome / Metabolomics

Lab: Clinical Biomarkers Lab: Dean Jones/ Young-Mi Go Lab

• Dean Jones, PhD
• Young-Mi Go, PhD

Structure, Process and Outcome Research Team (SPORT)

• David Murphy, MD, PhD
• Seema Tekwani, MD
• Jordan Kempker, MD, MSc
• Ankita Agarwal, MD, MSc
• Jenny Han, MD, MSc

HIV and The Lung

• Sara Auld, MD, MSc
• David Guidot, MD
• Sushma Cribbs, MD, MSc
• Bashar Staitieh, MD

Informatics and Predictive analytics

Informatics and predictive analytics leverages the increasing access to archived and real-time data capture with power machine learning tools to predict disease states and therapeutic response to deploy personalized treatments. 

• Andre Holder, MD, MSc
• Sivasubramanium Bhavani, MD
• Annette Kalifeh Esper, MD, MSc
• Rishikesan Kamaleswaran, MSc, PhD
• Gregory Martin, MD, MSc

Interstitial Lung Disease 

• Vibha Lama, MD, MS
• Mohleen Kang, MD, MSc
• Srihari Veeraraghavan, MD
• Lucian Marts, MD
• Adviteeya Dixit, MD
• Alexander Truong, MD, MPH
• Avanthika Wynn, MD

Interventional Pulmonology

Interventional Pulmonology at Emory University offers advanced techniques and procedures that have dramatically changed the approach to diagnosing, staging, and treating lung cancers, as well as pulmonary nodules, benign airway disease, and pleural diseases. The Interventional Pulmonology Program is the largest and most comprehensive program of its kind in the state of Georgia and offers a multidisciplinary approach to patient care.

• David Berkowitz, MD
• Wissam Jaber, MD
• Abesh Niroula, MD, MBBS
• Matthew Schimmel, MD
• Alejandro Sardi-Freitez, MD

Lung Epithelial Biology

• Michael Koval, PhD
• Vibha Lama, MD, MS
• David Guidot, MD
• Nicholas Maurice, MD

Lung Transplant Center

Research Lab: The Lama Lab

• David Neujahr, MD
• Vibha Lama, MD, MS

Nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease 

• Randy Hunt, MD
• Jamie Felzer, MD
• Erin Barton, NP

Pulmonary Hypertension Program

• Micah Fisher, MD
• Aaron Trammell, MD, MSc
• Hannah Oakland, MD 

Pulmonary Vascular Biology Program

• Charles Hart, MD
• Aaron Trammell, MD, MSc
• Micah Fisher, MD

Post (Long) COVID

• Alexander Truong MD, MPH
• Jenny Han, MD, MSc
• Adviteeya Dixit, MD

Sepsis

• Laurence Busse, MD, MBA
• Jonathan Sevransky, MD, MHS
• Andre Holder, MD, MSc
• Ankita Agarwal, MD, MSc
• Carmen Polito, MD, MSc
• Gregory Martin, MD, MSc
• Annette Kalifeh Esper, MD, MSc

Respiratory Infections, Tuberculosis and Special Pathogens

• Sara Auld, MD, MSc
• Gavin Harris, MD
• Lindsay Busch, MD
• Vijai Bhola, MD

Sleep Center