Critical Care Translational Research

Our educational curriculum also offers a research elective in which fellows have the opportunity to participate in one of these well published and funded groups:

• Dr. Prough's research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the Moody Foundation, and other sources. He is currently the Co-Principal Investigator of the Moody Project for Translational Brain Injury Research, which is focused on using experimental models to identify potential treatments for patients with acute and chronic traumatic brain injury. Other ongoing research projects involve the development of optoacoustic technology, which he co-invented, to provide continuous, noninvasive measure of blood oxygenation in newborn infants, fetuses during labor and traumatic brain injury victims. He is currently studying a novel technology, which recently received the Sheikh Zayed Prize for Pediatric Device Innovation, for identifying the precise position of endotracheal tubes in patients without using chest radiographs. His publications include original research on responses of the cerebral circulation to traumatic brain injury and hemorrhagic shock, cerebral circulation during cardiopulmonary bypass, and innovations in noninvasive monitoring. He has published more than 100 book chapters, over 250 original peer-reviewed articles, and made more than 500 presentations at conferences and other professional meetings.
• The investigational intensive care unit, funded by NIH and DOD, headed by Perenlei Enkhbaatar, MD PhD, is a 24/7 ICU for Translational Research Studies, where state of the art medical techniques and novel treatment strategies are developed for the critically ill patient. 
• The molecular pharmacology laboratory, headed by Csaba Szabo, MD PhD. This laboratory, funded by the NIH, JDRF and the ADA, focuses on the molecular pathogenesis of critical illness, with special emphasis on vascular dysfunction and cellular metabolic failure and employs state-of-the-art tools of cell biology, molecular biology, molecular pharmacology and cell-based screening.
• Resuscitation Research Laboratory, directed by George Kramer PhD, funded by NIH, US Army, Office of Naval Research and industry, conducts clinical, animal and engineering efforts into smart 'decision support' and autonomous care resuscitation systems for trauma and critical care. www.utmb.edu/rrl
• Michael P. Kinsky, MD, Professor, Vice-Chair for Clinical Research and Clinical Director, Resuscitation Research Laboratory. Dr. Kinsky is focused on modulating fluid therapy using pharmacologic agents and novel devices. His team tests these concepts in large animals, healthy volunteer studies and in patients. He is also developing and testing novel algorithms to improve diagnostic acumen so that life saving interventions can be initiated earlier. Dr. Kinsky is also the director of UTMB’s Institute for Translational Sciences Clinical Research Center.

For further information please contact our coordinator, Heronica Alexander at hdalexan@utmb.edu. Our ACCM fellow website will be available through our anesthesiology home page, http://anesth.utmb.edu/Public/index.asp.