Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy & Immunological Diseases Research
 In the Section on Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy & Immunological Diseases, faculty members conduct a wide variety of clinical, translational, and molecular research programs. This is accomplished within both the Section and the Center for Human Genomics, which is co-directed by 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 by Eugene Bleecker, MD, Stephen Peters, MD, PhD, Wendy Moore, MD, Michael Larj, MD, Raj Chatterjee, MD;
- a clinical site for the NHLBI's Asthma Clinical Research Network, principle investigator Stephen Peters, MD, PhD and
- the NHLBI Severe Asthma Research Program, Principle Investigator 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.
Physicians Hite and Morris conduct clinical trials on acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), sepsis and pneumonia in the Intensive Care Units of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, which serves 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 Norman Adair, M.D., are investigating behavioral/lifestyle modification intervention to improve the durability of benefits from pulmonary rehabilitation in COPD patients. This is through an NIH Grant, REACT II.
Translational, patient based work supported by the NHLBI is performed in the genetics of asthma, atopy, and related diseases by Principle Investigator Deborah Meyers, PhD and Eugene Bleecker, MD, and as part of an NHLBI Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) in asthma by Principle Investigator Stephen Peters, MD, PhD.
Within this Section, molecular investigations supported by the NIH include:
- a program in airway smooth muscle and epithelial cell signal transduction by Raymond Penn, PhD and Rudy Pascual, MD,
- epithelial and mesenchymal cell biology in asthma by Stephen Peters, MD, PhD and Annette Hastie, PhD,
- sequencing of genes associated with asthma, atopy and inflammation by Gregory Hawkins, PhD,
- and studies associating genetic haplotypes with diseases, disease-related phenotypes, and the response to medications used to treat these diseases by 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, Principle Investigator Jianfeng Xu, MD, MPH,
- polymorphisms of signal pathways and female cancer, and genomewide linkage for prostate cancer susceptibility, Principle Investigator Siqun Zheng, M.D.
- complications of diabetes, Principle Investigator Donald Bowden, PhD, and cardiovascular diseases, Principle Investigator David Herrington, MD, and Timothy Howard, PhD.
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