Dr. Charles S. Dela Cruz is a professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine. He serves as associate dean of the medical school, responsible for faculty research and engagement and physician-scientist career development. Dr. Dela Cruz directs the Center for Acute Lung Injury and Infection (ALII) and is deputy associate chief of staff for research at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System.
Formerly serving as a member of Yale University’s School of Medicine faculty, he held dual appointments in the departments of internal medicine (pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine) and microbial pathogenesis and directed the department of internal medicine’s physician-scientist training program. The founding director of Yale’s Center for Pulmonary Infection Research and Treatment (CPIRT), he also was vice chief of basic and translational research.
Dr. Dela Cruz completed his medical studies through a combined MD/PhD program at both the University of Toronto and the Yale School of Medicine. He completed his clinical education in internal medicine at Yale, receiving specialized training in pulmonary/critical care medicine and research through the ABIM Research Pathway which he previously directed.
His laboratory studies the role of respiratory viral and bacterial infection in the pathogenesis of acute and chronic lung diseases such as ARDS, COPD, and fibrosis. Using cell-based approaches, animal modeling, and human translational studies, his research focuses on the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms that help explain how lung infections contribute to the unresolved inflammation, persistent injury, and dysregulated tissue repair in the lung. His group has been studying several candidate host mediators, which contribute to lung tissue homeostasis and during infection. He has established a large clinical and biospecimen database of a patient cohort with respiratory infections. More recently, he has been pursuing basic, translational, and clinical research related to COVID-19, having established the importance of host responses to SARS-CoV-2 virus on immune phenotypes and multi-omic signatures, eicosanoid mediators, and immune dysfunctions in disease severity and in its treatment. He has been addressing important, clinically relevant questions in respiratory-infection biology and has provided insights crucial to explain the lung host and respiratory pathogen interaction as it relates to pneumonia. Specifically, he and his collaborators have been focusing on acute, systemic, and chronic sequalae of respiratory infections, a topic that is of significance to clinicians and researchers.
Dr. Dela Cruz is a strong, internationally-recognized advocate for the training, early-career development, and support of scientists and physician-scientists.
