Supporting New Faculty Recruitment Through BioMedical Research Core Center

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The University of Minnesota Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care & Sleep (PACCS) Division has been systematically recruiting additional physician scientists focused on lung injury and repair to join the tenure track faculty. Our faculty met and identified a significant gap in our faculty research interest profile in this area - respiratory infections. This area is not only of great importance as a public health issue in the US and worldwide, it is also an area with outstanding multi-disciplinary, collaborative scientific opportunities at the University of Minnesota. Within the PACCS Division, among our NIH-funded PIs, there are 7 faculty with expertise in lung inflammation and injury. In addition, there are three academically strong Centers and programs pertinent to our proposed recruit, providing a dynamic research environment to promote scientific growth and career development. The Center for Infectious Disease, Microbiology & Translational Research brings together faculty from the Medicine, Pediatrics and Microbiology Departments in interdisciplinary translational research on microbial pathogenesis. The Center for Lung Science and Health provides a home for faculty and students from across the Academic Health Center and larger University with interests related to lung health and disease. Finally, the University of Minnesota has an internationally renowned Cystic Fibrosis program. While this program is outstanding in clinical care and clinical trials activity, the basic research component is less strong. Thus a major recruitment target area of the PACCS Division is for a physician-scientist with research focused on respiratory infections, particularly with relevance to lung injury in Cystic Fibrosis. Our proposed P30 recruit, Bryan Williams MD, PhD is completing his fourth year of Pulmonary, Critical Care & CF fellowship at Vanderbilt University. His research focus is on host-pathogen interactions in respiratory infections, specifically exploring the role of a polyamine precursor, agmatine, that is important in Pseudomonas infections and in biofilm formation. He obtained his Microbiology PhD under the mentorship of Dr. Arnie Smith studying Hemophilus infections and his post-doctoral fellowship research has been supervised by Dr. Timothy Blackwell. Dr Williams' research relates directly to his clinical interest in CF-related lung dise disease, enabling convergence of his research and clinical program. The recruitment of Bryan Willliams MD, PhD will add the new dimension of expertise in respiratory infections to the PACCS Divisional research It will greatly augment basic research in the Cystic Fibrosis Center program and will provide a research bridge between the Center for Lung Science and Health and the Center for Infectious Disease, Microbiology Translational Research. Dr Williams's research brings an innovative approach to understanding and decreasing Pseudomonas infection in CF patients.