Andreas Schwingshackl, MD, PhD

Dr. Andreas Schwingshackl's MD and PhD training provides the ideal framework for his work as a clinician-scientist in the field of lung inflammation, injury and repair. Dr. Schwingshackl's current research focuses on the role of stretch-activated potassium channels in the development of ventilator-induced lung injury, including inflammatory mediator secretion, loss of epithelial barrier function and lung repair mechanisms. In 2009 he discovered the expression of stretch-activated, 2-pore domain potassium (K2P) channels in the lung epithelium and in the following years he demonstrated that the TREK subfamily of K2P channels plays a crucial role in the development of hyperoxia- and mechanical stretch-induced lung injury. To study these TREK channels, Dr. Schwingshackl's lab created several stable, TREK-1 deficient and TREK-1 overexpressing murine and human lung epithelial cells lines and they currently employ TREK-deficient mouse models, in conjunction with state-of the-art molecular, genetic, electrophysiological and imaging techniques, such as confocal immunofluorescence microscopy, electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM). His work in this field has been recognized and supported by national and international funding agencies such as the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, the Austrian Hans and Blanca Moser Foundation, the University of Tennessee Children's Foundation Research Institute, the American Lung Association and the National Institutes for Health (K12, K08, and R01 awards). Currently, Dr. Schwingshackl contributes to the field of pulmonary medicine by serving as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Pediatric Critical Care, as a standing member of the American Thoracic Society (ATS) Program Committee for Respiratory, Cell and Molecular Cell Biology and the American Heart Association (AHA) grant review panel (BSc Lung), and as an ad-hoc reviewer for more than 10 scientific journals. Recently, the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) has rewarded his research efforts in pulmonary medicine with the prestigious Dorothy & Robert Keyser Endowed Chair in Pediatrics.