Participating faculty including investigators who have significant expertise in their areas of research and who have established experience in mentoring trainees. Each scientific preceptor is conducting basic-science research that examines the cellular and molecular mechanisms of injury and diseases encountered in trauma, burns and critical care.

 Fiemu Nwariaku, MD, Associate Professor of Surgery.  The Nwariaku laboratory is interested in inflammatory endothelial dysfunction; specifically this laboratory examines the role of intracellular oxidants as mediators of cytokine signaling.  Their work indicates that oxidants generated by endothelial NADPH oxidase leads to phosphorylation of junctional proteins and subsequent loss of endothelial barrier function.  Their laboratory has expertise in molecular biology techniques including cloning, mutagenesis, construction of viral vectors and immunoblotting.  Other techniques in the laboratory include the use of cDNA mini-arrays, confocal microscopy and transmonolayer electrical resistance.  He is funded by the NIGMS and the Robert Wood Johnson foundation.

George Lister, M.D., Professor and Chairman, Pediatrics. Dr. Lister obtained a B.A. from Brown University (1969), and M.D. (cum laude) from Yale University (1973). He was as a pediatric resident at Yale-New Haven Hospital (1973-1975), and fellow at UCSF and the Cardiovascular Research Institute (1975-1978), where he began his research interest in post-natal adaptation to hypoxia. His clinical training was in Cardiology and Neonatology, with the eventual intent of practicing Critical Care Medicine. He joined the Faculty in the Departments of Anesthesia and Pediatrics at UCSF before assuming a position at Yale, where he remained from 1978 until 2003. He rose from Assistant Professor to Professor of Pediatrics and Anesthesiology, and Section Chief of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, and Director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.  He was appointed Chairman of Pediatrics at UT Southwestern in the fall of 2003 and holds the Robert L. Moore Chair in Pediatrics.  Dr. Lister's research has focused on oxygen transport during postnatal development, which has been supported by continuous extramural funding since 1978. In 1992 the NICHD appointed him Chair of The Collaborative Home Infant Monitoring Evaluation, a multi-center program to study efficacy of home monitoring for SIDS. These studies have become a major research commitment, and he was recently given a special award for leadership by the NICHD Director.  Dr. Lister also has a particular interest in academic development. Towards this end he has directed an NIH funded training grant for 27 years and fellowship program in Critical Care Medicine, helped initiate the SPR Student Summer Research Program, and participated actively in teaching programs in Eastern Europe through both the IPRF and other organizations. He also has a major role in teaching at Yale Medical School and was the Associate Director for Clinical Science of the MD-PhD Program.  He has received recognition of his interests through receipt of an Established Investigator Award of the American Heart Association, Fulbright Fellowship, the Distinguished Career Award of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society for Pediatric Research Maureen Andrew Mentor Award, and listing in The Best Doctors in America since 1992.

 Julio Perez Fontan, M.D. My laboratory investigates how the nervous system influences the structure and function of the airways. Our previous work has been aimed at elucidating the role of the parasympathetic system in the regulation of the mechanical interdependence between airways and the surrounding lung parenchyma. Specifically, we have analyzed the neuronal mechanisms that facilitate the mechanical coupling of airway tone to the stresses generated during lung breathing. Our physiological and neuroanatomical studies have contributed to our present view of the bronchomotor system as an integral part of the control of breathing by defining the relationships between vagal and phrenic outflows and the overlap between the bronchomotor and breathing networks. More recently, our attention has been focused on the participation of sensory neuropeptides in the regulation of the inflammatory response. Using targeted deletion and transgenic insertions, we have been able to demonstrate a neurokinin-mediated amplification mechanism in the airways. This mechanism involves a previously unsuspected synergy between nociceptor fibers and inflammatory cells, both of which appear to release substance P and other neurokinins as part of a well orchestrated response to a variety of injuries.