Dear PACCM Family:

Happy New Year to all of you! I am thrilled to share with you several new developments among our faculty, fellows, and staff as we head into 2016 in this issue of the Insider. Our Division contin-ues to thrive as an international leader evidenced by so many accomplishments from our faculty and trainees. Memora-ble highlights include a very exciting Pitt-Munich Conference, our PACCM research retreat, our successful fellowship match, and ongoing faculty recruitments.

We also welcome our new faculty hires:

Sanjay R. Patel, MD, MS Seyed Mehdi Nouraie, MD, PhD Toru Nyunoya, MD

I look forward to 2016 as we will make efforts to solidify and implement new clinical programs of excellence, formal-ize opportunities for clinician educators, and continue our commitment for distinction in scholarship.

Enjoy!

Rama Mallampalli, MD

On November 20, 2015, patients and their family members had an opportunity to hear from our experts about the latest in pulmonary hypertension research, and learned what investigators are working on to better understand this disease.

The day featured lectures by our physi-cians, as well as a chance to talk to researchers as the patients toured the labs.

March 1, 2016

Volume 2, Issue 1

The PACCM Insider

Inside this issue:

Munich-Pittsburgh Lung Conference Summary

2

Selected Publications 3

Appointments 4

Promotions 4

New Hires 4

Ramping it Up 5

Faculty and Fellows Step Up to Teach

5

Going Above and Beyond 5

Grants, Awards, & Notable Mentions

6

Upcoming Events 7

Fellows 8

Fellows Research Retreat 8

Retreat Fun 9

Celebrations 10

Special points of interest:

New Appointments

Munich-Pittsburgh International Lung Conference

Fellows Research Retreat

Save the Dates for Upcoming Events

PH Program Research Day for Patients

In 2014, PACCM initiated a partnership with the Compre-hensive Pneumology Center, Institute of Lung Biology and Disease, Ludwig-Maximilians University and Helmholtz Zentrum München, Munich, Germany, to co-host the con-ference and establish a wider collaboration for clinical and research development.

In conjunction with that collaboration, the 2015 confer-ence was held in Munich, Germany. And what better time to visit than during Oktoberfest?

Notable highlights included:

Several of our faculty served as either presenters or ses-sion chairs: Mauricio Rojas, MD, Danny Kass, MD, John McDyer, MD, Frank Sciurba, MD, Rama Mallampalli, MD, Mark Gladwin, MD, Fernando Holguin, MD, MPH, Sally Wenzel, MD, Bill Chen, PhD, Charly Lai, PhD, Ana Mora, MD

Junior investigator presentations were given by Jason Rose, MD, Elizabeth Lendermon, MD, Joe Bednash, MD, Carl Koch, MD, and Jessica Bon, MD.

Charly Lai, PhD and Bill Chen, PhD received The “Münchner Bank Research Award for Excellence in Pulmo-nary Research”.In addition, Josiah Radder received one of the MPLC 2015 Poster Prizes.

Be sure to mark your calendars for next year when the conference returns to Pittsburgh: October 6-7, 2016.

2015 Munich-Pittsburgh International Lung Conference

Sally Wenzel opening 2nd day of #mplc2015 addressing asthma -Photo credit, Oliver Eickelberg

Page 2 The PACCM Insider

Oktoberfest Fun

Fernando Holguin and Alison Morris

Rama Mallampalli opening the lecture series of #mias2015 - Photo courtesy of CPC Research School

Keven Robinson

Mark Gladwin, Charly Lai, Oliver Eickelberg -Photo credit, Marta Bueno

Carl Koch presentation

Crespo MM, Bermudez CA, Dew MA, Johnson BA, George MP, Bhama J, Morrell M, D'Cunha J, Shigemura N, Richards TJ, Pilewski JM. Lung Transplantation in Patients with Scleroderma Compared with Pulmonary Fibrosis: Short and Long-term Outcomes in a Single Institution. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2015 Dec 15. [Epub ahead of print]

Gauthier M, Ray A, Wenzel SE. Evolving Concepts of Asthma. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2015 Sep 15;192(6):660-8.

Barbash IJ, Kahn JM. Assessing the Value of Intensive Care. JAMA. 2015 Sep 22-29;314(12):1240-1.

Moller DR, Koth LL, Maier LA, Morris A, Drake W, Rossman M, Leader JK, Collman RG, Hamzeh N, Sweiss NJ, Zhang Y, O'Neal S, Senior RM, Becich M, Hochheiser HS, Kaminski N, Wisniewski SR, Gibson KF; GRADS Sarcoidosis Study Group *. Rationale and Design of the Genomic Research in Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency and Sarcoidosis (GRADS) Study. Sarcoido-sis Protocol. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2015 Oct;12(10):1561-71.

Denlinger LC, King TS, Cardet JC, Craig T, Holguin F, Jackson DJ, Kraft M, Peters SP, Ross K, Sumino K, Boushey HA, Jarjour NN, Wechsler ME, Wenzel SE, Castro M, Avila PC; National Heart Lung and Blood Institute AsthmaNet Investigators. Vita-min D Supplementation and the Risk of Colds in Patients with Asthma. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2015 Nov 5. [Epub ahead of print]

Collini P, Morris A. Maintaining lung health with longstanding HIV. Curr Opin Infect Dis. 2015 Nov 9. [Epub ahead of print]

Popescu I, Pipeling MR, Mannem H, Shah PD, Orens JB, Connors M, Migueles SA, McDyer JF. IL-12-Dependent Cytomegalo-virus-Specific CD4+ T Cell Proliferation, T-bet Induction, and Effector Multifunction during Primary Infection Are Key Deter-minants for Early Immune Control. J Immunol. 2015 Dec 11. [Epub ahead of print]

Rojas M, Mora AL, Kapetanaki M, Weathington N, Gladwin M, Eickelberg O. Aging and Lung Disease. Clinical Impact and Cellular and Molecular Pathways. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2015 Dec;12(12):S222-7.

Singamsetty S, Shah FA, Guo L, Watanabe Y, McDonald S, Sharma R, Zhang Y, Alonso LC, O'Donnell CP, McVerry BJ. Early initiation of low-level parenteral dextrose induces an accelerated diabetic phenotype in septic C57BL/6J mice. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2015 Sep 9:1-8. [Epub ahead of print]

Qu Z, Sun F, Zhou J, Li L, Shapiro SD, Xiao G. Interleukin-6 Prevents the Initiation but Enhances the Progression of Lung Cancer. Cancer Res. 2015 Aug 15;75(16):3209-15. Epub 2015 Jun 29.

Woodson BT, Soose RJ, Gillespie MB, Strohl KP, Maurer JT Md, de Vries N, Steward DL, Baskin JZ, Badr MS, Lin HS, Padhya TA, Mickelson S, Anderson WM, Vanderveken OM, Strollo PJ Jr; STAR Trial Investigators. Three-Year Outcomes of Cranial Nerve Stimulation for Obstructive Sleep Apnea: The STAR Trial. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2015 Nov 17. [Epub ahead of print]

Kim S, Herazo-Maya JD, Kang DD, Juan-Guardela BM, Tedrow J, Martinez FJ, Sciurba FC, Tseng GC, Kaminski N. Integrative phenotyping framework (iPF): integrative clustering of multiple omics data identifies novel lung disease subphenotypes. BMC Genomics. 2015 Nov 11;16(1):924.

Tofovic SP, Salah EM, Smits GJ, Whalley ET, Ticho B, Deykin A, Jackson EK. Dual A1/A2B Receptor Blockade Improves Cardiac and Renal Outcomes in a Rat Model of Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction. J Pharmacol Exp Ther. 2015 Nov 19. [Epub ahead of print]

Zou C, Li J, Xiong S, Chen Y, Wu Q, Li X, Weathington NM, Han S, Snavely C, Chen BB, Mallampalli RK. Mortality factor 4 like 1 protein mediates epithelial cell death in a mouse model of pneumonia. Sci Transl Med. 2015 Oct 28;7(311):311ra171.

Agassandian M, Tedrow JR, Sembrat J, Kass DJ, Zhang Y, Goncharova EA, Kaminski N, Mallampalli RK, Vuga LJ.VCAM-1 is a TGF-β1 inducible gene upregulated in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Cell Signal. 2015 Dec;27(12):2467-73. Epub 2015 Sep 18.

Selected Publications

Page 3 Volume 2, Issue 1

Courtesy of VADLO.com

New Appointments

Sanjay R. Patel, MD, MS, appointed as Director of Sleep Med-icine and Cardiovascular Outcomes Center and Medical Director of the UPMC Sleep Laboratory beginning

January 1, 2016.

Page 4 The PACCM Insider

Promotions and Appointments

New Hires Welcome to all the new members of our PACCM Family!

John (Jack ) Leech - Pilewski/Myerburg Lab

Kelly Hall - Administrative Assistant to Rama Mallampalli, MD

Megan D’Innocenzo - Clinical Research Coordinator - (F. Scuirba)

Alexa Apicella—Research Communications Specialist (Asthma Institute)

Chandler Caufield -- Mauricio Rojas Lab

Vicki Petraglia—Clinical Research Coordinator - (A. Morris)

Patrick Strollo, MD Vice Chair for Veterans Affairs

Department of Medicine -Photo courtesy of UPMC

Danielle Farias - Clinical Research Coordinator - (A. Morris)

Baojun Chang, MD, PhD—Research Instructor - (E. Goncharova)

Ariana Garcia- Administrative Assistant

Kaylee Klingemsmith—Clinical Research Coordinator (S. Patel)

Joseph Huwe—Laboratory Specialist (A. Morris)

Kathryn Gazarik -Clinical Research Coordinator (F. Sciurba)

JunHo Jang, PhD - Research Instructor (T. Nyunoya)

Seyed Mehdi Nouraie, MD, PhD Visiting Associate

Professor of Medicine

Toru Nyunoya, MD Visiting Associate

Professor of Medicine

Patrick Strollo, MD - Vice Chair for Veterans Affairs in the Department of Medicine

Shikha Gupta, MD—UPMC McKeesport ICU Director

David Kristo, MD—Director of the Sleep Laboratory

Meghan Fitzpatrick, MD—UPMC East Critical Care Medicine Division Chief

Victor Okwiya, MD - Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine

Courtney Sparacino-Watkins, PhD —Research Assistant Professor

Yen Chun (Charly) Lai, PhD —Research Assistant Professor

Yuan Liu, PhD—Research Assistant Professor

Jared Chiarchiaro, MD—Quality Program Director, Services for Select Specialty

Melody Porter - Office Manager of the Comprehensive Lung Center

Winners of the UPMC Your Care, Our Commitment Quarterly Service Excellence Recognition Awards were honored for working with other departments to improve care, meeting emerging challenges in health care, and improving patient satisfaction. This awards program is conducted on the UPMC Presbyterian and UPMC Shadyside campuses.

Under the direction of Dr. Chris Faber, the Comprehensive Lung Center (CLC) received the “Ramping It Up” award for being the most improved department in Press Ganey measures of staff courtesy/friendliness, and staff concern for personal issues .

Kenzie Furlong, RN BSN, a nurse manager in the CLC, nominated the sleep lab as a department that was extremely helpful in helping them achieve those improvements, resulting in the Sleep Lab recognition for “Collaboration at Work”. Congratulations to all!

A huge shout out to the following faculty and fellows who vol-unteered their time during a four day course directed by Dr. Phil Lamberty, which instructs residents and medical students on point of care ultrasound: cardiac (echo), lung, abdominal and vascular ultrasonographic techniques.

Sarita Kumari, MD: 12 hours of ultra sound instruction

Jared Chiarchiaro, MD: 8 hours of ultra sound instruction

Stephanie Maximous, MD: ultra sound instruction 8 hours, LP simulation

Elisabeth Baker, MD: ultra sound instruction 4 hours

Eric Nolley, MD: 4 hours ultra sound instruction

Quyen Nguyen, MD: Lumbar puncture simulation

William Bain, MD: ultra sound guided IV lecture and ultra sound scanning 2 hours

Faculty & Fellows Step Up to Teach

Page 5 Volume 2, Issue 1

Ramping It Up!

A special “THANK YOU” to those who have picked up extra shifts at McKeesport, UPMC East, and nights!

Michael Donahoe, MD

Joseph Pilewski, MD

Divay Chandra, MD

Jared Chiarchiaro, MD

Meghan Fitzpatrick, MD

Matt Gingo, MD

Phil Lamberty, MD

Mike Myerburg, MD

Faraaz Shah, MD

Nate Weathington, MD, PhD

Anna Zemke, MD

William Bain demonstrating ultra sound guided IV on Phil Lamberty

Michelle MacPherson, Simmons Center, received a 2015 UPMC Award for Commitment and Excel-lence in Service (ACES).

Rama Mallampalli, MD is the recipient of Harring-ton Scholar-Innovator Award for the development of lung transplant rejection inhibitors. He has also been invited to serve on the Board of Con-sulting Editors of the Journal of Clinical Investiga-tion.

Kathleen Lindell, PhD was appointed as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation.

Yuan Liu, PhD was recently funded for an AHA Scientist Development Grant with a 9.18 percen-tile.

Yutong Zhao, MD, PhD has been invited to join JCI Insight’s Consulting Editorial Board. JCI Insight is a new journal of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI).

Grants, Awards, & Notable Mentions

Page 6 The PACCM Insider

Frank Sciurba, MD received notice from his NIH/NHLBI proposal that the University of Pittsburgh has been selected to serve as a Lung Tissue Re-search Consortium (LTRC)- Clinical Center.

Joe Pilewski, MD received the Outstanding CF Advocate Award from the Western Pennsylvania Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

ATS 2016 Conference - May 13-18, San Francisco

Rama Mallampalli, Mark Gladwin, and Chris O’Donnell

Upcoming Events

In the News

Watch a recent news video by Frank Sciurba, MD, by clicking here.

Dr. Sciurba will also co-direct The Net-work Management Core (NEMO) , des-ignated to coordinate multiple clinical studies on a variety of chronic lung conditions. Other NEMO investigators include: Kevin Gibson, MD, Kathy Lin-dell, PhD, Patrick Strollo, MD, Mark Gladwin, MD, Alison Morris, MD, MS, Joe Pilewski, MD, and Yingze Zhang, PhD. Full article can be read here.

Watch a Medical Mondays segment on CTEPH with Patty George, MD by click-ing here.

Earn online CME credit by watching Medical Grand Rounds: Moving Asth-ma Treatment into the 21st Century: From Bench to Bedside and Back Again, with Anuradha Ray, PhD and Sally Wenzel, MD. Or by watching COPD: An Early Aging Disease, with Frank Sciurba, MD

Page 7 The PACCM Insider

PITTSBURGH-MUNICH INTERNATIONAL LUNG CONFERENCE

Lung Immune Responses

and Inflammation in Health

and Disease

OCTOBER 6-7, 2016

UNIVERSITY CLUB, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

www.lungconf.pitt.edu

Call for Abstracts opens on March 15 Register early!

Web Updates The PACCM website will be undergoing a major revamp in the coming weeks and we need your help!

Please take a moment to look over your personal and cen-ter/institute pages to be sure all the information is still current.

Send any updates and pictures to:

dobranskyta@upmc.edu and/or kmb168@pitt.edu

We especially need research (gels/stains) images to utilize throughout the site.

See the gorgeous example sent to us from Hideki Inoue in the Asthma Institute:

“Human airway epithelial cells in polarized culture sys-tem. Wounding of the cells increases proliferation (Ki67 staining –pink fluorescence). F-actin (green) outlines edges of the cells, with blue (DAPI) stain-ing identifying cell nuclei.”

Jason Rose, MD had an impact score of 18 and 5.0 percentile on a F32 application.

Ian Barbash, MD had an impact score of 20 and percentile of 11 on a recent NSRA grant.

Joe Bednash, MD was awarded a Joint Meeting Travel Award for an abstract submitted to the 2016 ASCI/AAP/APSA Annual Meeting to be held April 15-16, 2016 in Chicago, Illinois

Anna Zemke, MD received a Harry Shwachman Cystic Fibrosis Clinical Investigator Award for her application titled, Nitrite Dis-persal of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Biotic Biofilms. She also received a priority score of 30 on her K award applica-tion titled, Nebulized Nitrite as a Novel Antimicrobial Therapy in Cystic Fibrosis.

Fellows Research Retreat The 2016 Fellows Research Retreat was held on February 1-3, beginning in our 1295 conference room before moving to Seven Springs Mountain Resort.

Our fellows had the opportunity to interact with Dr. Bruce Levy, MD, PhD, Parker B. Francis Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Division Chief, Brigham and Women's Hospital, during various presentations and social events. While trainees and third year fellows presented brief overviews of their current research, Dr. Levy rounded out the afternoon by giving a lecture on Science and Career Development.

Once at Seven Springs, faculty provided overviews of the resources available to the fellows, as well as summaries of the individual Centers of Excellence within our Division.

Afterward, the rivalry began during our annual bowling competition, with our first year fellows leading the way as team captains.

Congratulations to our 2016 Bowling Champions:

Captain: Daniel Zank, MD Georgios Kitsios, MD Divay Chandra, MD Carl Koch, MD Ana Mora, MD

Fellows It’s a Match! After a long application and interview season, seven outstanding new people will be joining our fellow-ship program next July:

Joseph Bednash UPMC Matthew Camiolo UPMC Daniel Dunlap University of Michigan Jennifer Newitt Indiana University Erin Nuzzo BIDMC Craig Riley UPMC Eleanor Valenzi University of Chicago

Page 8 Volume 2, Issue 1

Page 9 Volume 2, Issue 1

-Photo credits, Bryan McVerry

Research Retreat Fun

Be sure to notify us of all newsworthy items! New Grants

Honors & Awards

Promotions & New Appointments

Special Presentations/Seminars

Engagements/Marriages/Births

Share photos of your colleagues! Send info to: dobranskyta@upmc.edu

Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine-PACCM

Like us on Facebook!

BIRTHS

Congratulations to Jianxin (Lisa) Wei, MD on the birth of her baby girl, Olivia, on December 30, 2015!

Celebrations

www.dept-med.pitt.edu/PACCM

@PACCM

Follow us on Twitter!

Random Fun

HERE WE GO, STEELERS!

Maybe the Steelers didn’t make it to the Super Bowl this year, but it wasn’t for the lack of spirit here in our division!

Editor-in-Chief: Rama Mallampalli, MD Senior Editor: Terri Dobransky