This new Emory Acute Lung Injury Training Program is being formed by a diverse and productive group of faculty mentors with the common goal of training post-doctoral translational investigators who can transform our ability to predict, detect and prevent serious lung diseases in vulnerable populations. The Program will begin with four post-doctoral training slots that will be used to support research training for PhD and MD scientists in both pediatric and adult lung biology with a distinct focus on elucidating the common mechanisms by which oxidative stress renders the lung susceptible to injury and infection. In addition, two short-term positions will be used to support minority medical students and introduce them to translational research and thereby impart the excitement and encouragement necessary for them to pursue this pathway in their medical careers. The Program will be directed by Lou Ann Brown, PhD from the Department of Pediatrics and the Division of Neonatology and by David Guidot, MD from the Department of Medicine and the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine. They have enlisted a multidisciplinary faculty of mentors from the Departments of Pediatrics and Medicine within the School of Medicine, as well as from the Departments of Biostatistics and Epidemiology within the Rollins School of Public Health. Post-doctoral MD fellows will be recruited from the outstanding fellowship training programs in the Departments of Pediatrics and Medicine. Post-doctoral PhD fellows will be recruited from the national pool of qualified candidates as well as from the local pool of competitive graduates from diverse biomedical disciplines within the Laney Graduate School at Emory University. The two short-term summer research minority students will be recruited from the Morehouse School of Medicine where the Program Directors have an established relationship with the Dean of Student Affairs and a substantial training history with their top students over the past five years.
This new Emory Acute Lung Injury Training Program is being formed to help develop a new generation of biomedical scientists whose common goal is to determine how diverse acute and chronic causes of oxidative stress render the lung vulnerable to injury. The Program's unique focus is on identifying how oxidative stress causes pre-clinical (and often unrecognized) susceptibility to the subsequent development of lung disease, including the development and validation of biomarkers that can be used to detect early disease as well as monitor the response to therapeutic interventions. Experimental and clinical studies by Program faculty indicate that risk factors such as alcohol abuse, HIV infection, sickle cell anemia and malnutrition cause oxidative stress that can be detected non-invasively and suggest that sub-clinical cellular dysfunction can be reversed or prevented prior to the development of serious lung disease.
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