Despite major advances in supportive care and tissue typing non relapse mortality rates for adults undergoing hematopoietic cell transplantation are still between 15-20 % at 2 years.
Lung injury and respiratory failure is a major causes of death after HCT.
Although the BMT-CTN has a focused agenda on GVHD, reduction of lung toxicities will be important to improve outcomes.
NHLBI should encourage researched from the... more »

Often under recognized, the cardiac endothelial cells are highly abundant in the heart, and may have important roles in modulating cardiac function, besides simply serving as structural component of blood vessels. Evidences of ours and others have indicated an emerging role of cardiac endothelial cells signaling to cardiomyocytes to mediate important pathophysiological responses. Nonetheless, detailed mechanisms of... more »

Dangerous mechanical interaction of the cerebral vascular system with the brain parenchyma during mild traumatic brain injury from either a blast wave or from impact may result from a combination of shear and compression deformation waves that causes non-diffusive extracellular fluid motion. Measure the mechanical response, to a combination of shear and compressive deformation, of animal model specimens containing the... more »

Both adults and children have significant morbidity and mortality due to lung injury, but have different etiologies and outcomes. It is possible that the underlying pathobiology in the two groups is different. There are no targeted therapies for lung injury, indicating that the cause is still not understood.

What are the critical mechanisms that account for progression from reversible to irreversible ischemia and reperfusion injury?

Microvascular ischemia is common, particularly in the setting of critical illness. We need better ways to evaluate, diagnose and treat these conditions, whether they relate to microvascular myocardial ischemia, as a primary diagnosis of complication of other acute illness, or non-myocardial ischemia during the course of surgery, injury, infection or acute illness.