Matthew Randall Rosengart, MD, MPH
Photo: Matthew R. Rosengart

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Elected 2018

Dr. Matthew R. Rosengart is Professor of Surgery and Director of the Pittsburgh Surgical Outcomes and Research Center (PittSORCe). He holds secondary appointments in Critical Care Medicine and Clinical and Translational Science. His laboratory has a long-standing record of examining the role of innate immunity in the systemic response to injury and infection, with particular expertise in phagocyte biology, calcium signaling, autophagy and mitochondrial function, and recently circadian biology, using clinically relevant models of sepsis and trauma. His collective training in the clinical, biological, and epidemiological sciences has provided him particular expertise in the conduct of clinical translational studies, particularly those of a T1 translational nature. His use of implantable biotelemetry fostered the development of a murine "ICU" that enables the monitoring of animal physiology in real-time and the creation of a physiology-based platform of testing interventions that more closely resembles the conduct of human clinical trial design. He is particularly interested in novel mechanisms and strategies to improve the morbidity and mortality outcomes of sepsis and shock. In this vein, his lab recently reported that the spectrum of light is a critical determinant of mammalian biology. In several clinically relevant models of sepsis, they have shown that exposure to light "tuned" to a high illuminance, low (blue) spectrum modulates the clock biology of innate immune cells, such as the macrophage, which enhances immune competence and accelerates bacterial clearance. Recent data derived from pilot feasibility trials suggest that the mechanisms are relevant to human biology. This strong translational perspective of his investigations, which capitalizes upon analyses of human cohort data and clinical correlates of animal-based studies, has enabled him to provide mechanistic insight into the clinically relevant outcomes of organ dysfunction and survival with an emphasis on the development of novel therapeutics.