Recognition Awards for Scientific Accomplishments are presented each year to four scientists to recognize outstanding scientific contributions in basic or clinical research that enhance the understanding, prevention, and treatment of respiratory disease or critical illness. Individuals who are considered for the award are recognized for either scientific contributions throughout their careers or for major contributions at a particular point in their careers. Awardees will each make a 25-minute presentation of their research.

Joanna Floros

Joanna Floros, PhD, ATSF
Evan Pugh University Professor in Cellular and Molecular Physiology
Departments of Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology
Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Floros will present Surfactant Protein A Genetic Variants: So What? Interplay of Genetic Variability, Sex, and Oxidative Stress. She first became interested in the pulmonary surfactant field and surfactant proteins while at Harvard. Because most (if not all) pulmonary diseases are characterized by derangement of host defense and/or surfactant function, these proteins are relevant to various pulmonary diseases. Dr. Floros’s primary focus is surfactant protein A (SP-A), an innate immune molecule, which, in humans, has been identified with extensive genetic and epigenetic variability. Her current research, using a variety of approaches, is on the function and regulation of the human SP-A variants and how these may change in response to environmental cues and/or as a function of sex.

Nicholas Lukacs

Nicholas W. Lukacs, PhD
Godfrey D. Stobbe Professor of Pathology
Scientific Director
Mary H. Weiser Food Allergy Center
University of Michigan Medical School

Dr. Lukacs will present Respiratory Infections and Asthma: The Role of the Microbiome. The Lukacs Lab is focused on the innate and acquired immune responses in allergen- and respiratory virus-induced diseases, as well as the role that the gut microbiome has on development of the early life immune system. Studies in the laboratory have explored the function and activation of DC and T cells during infections and the differential modulation of the immune and pathologic responses that lead to exacerbated disease progression. Translational collaborations include studies examining severe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)-induced disease with infants in the pediatric ICU as well as the development of food and airborne allergen responses in inner-city birth cohorts linked to microbiome and metabolic profiles.

Prabir Ray

Prabir Ray, PhD
Professor of Medicine and Immunology
Endowed Chair of Lung Immunology in Medicine
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Dr. Ray will present Infection and Immunity in the Lung. Early in his career at Yale University, Dr. Ray pioneered the development of inducible cell-specific transgenic mice to show the important role of the growth factor KGF in protection from lung epithelial cell death during lung injury. Currently, his research interest encompasses immunoregulatory mechanisms of lung inflammation as they relate to disease inception and resolution in the context of infections by bacteria and viruses. His findings in this area may explain the link between respiratory virus-induced severe illness in early life and the predisposition to asthma in later life. In ongoing translational research, his laboratory is investigating differential response to RSV infection in infants that causes severe illness in some but mild illness in others.

Theodore J. Standiford

Theodore J. Standiford, MD
Professor of Internal Medicine
Chief, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
Michigan Medicine
University of Michigan

Dr. Standiford will present Lung Innate Immunity: From Chemokines to Toll Receptors and Beyond. The thrust of basic and translational research in Dr. Standiford’s laboratory has focused on exploring immune responses in the lung. His research has identified the importance of pathogen recognition receptors in mucosal immunity and has defined how downstream pathogen recognition receptor signaling is regulated by both immunological and epigenetic mechanisms. His laboratory has uncovered basic mechanisms of experimental lung injury in response to infectious and non-infectious insults. In human studies, Dr. Standiford has investigated mechanisms of lung injury in sepsis and ARDS and performed trials to assess the effect of growth factor administration on outcome of patients with ARDS.