Description:

Abstract

Work from several groups has revealed tissue macrophages as heterogenous cells with distinct developmental origins. Our group is interested in how these distinct populations of cells respond to tissue injury and how these responses change over the lifespan. Using the lung as an example, we are exploring the role of cell autonomous and environmentally programmed changes in lung macrophages during disease and during aging. As many tissues harbor long lived populations of macrophages, our findings have implications for understanding the link between aging and disease risk across a spectrum of disorders.

Speaker Info

Dr. G.R. Scott Budinger, MD, received his undergraduate degree with distinction in chemical engineering from the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University, and his MD with honors from the University of Illinois at Chicago (1989). He completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals and remained there for his pulmonary and critical care fellowship. Subsequently, Dr. Budinger was recruited to Northwestern University (2000), where he was appointed Professor of Medicine with Tenure (2014) and Chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care and the Ernest S. Bazley Professor of Airway Diseases (2016). Dr. Budinger leads a group of investigators who are using combinations of advanced-flow cytometry techniques, and transcriptomic, epigenomic and proteomic approaches, to test the hypothesis that age-related changes in proteostasis underlie the reduced resistance to environmental stress in the aging lung. This research has revealed novel mechanisms that explain the dramatic increase in the risk for acute and chronic lung disease associated with advancing age. Dr. Budinger ultimately seeks to apply these laboratory-developed tools and molecular insights to the care of patients with lung disease at Northwestern Medicine. This work draws on the skills and expertise of the outstanding clinical and research faculty in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, which Dr. Budinger is privileged to lead.