Current Projects
- Since 2003, I have led federally funded clinical/research programs focused on occupational lung diseases in western miners and historic uranium industry workers. As Principal Investigator and Medical Director of the Miners Clinic at National Jewish Health, I have developed a program of clinical care and research that has led to a number of scientific publications. Our collaborative work implicated exposure to respirable silica and silicates as the major cause of the increased prevalence and severity of Coal Worker’s Pneumoconiosis and progressive massive fibrosis (PMF) in U.S. coal miners. Our team helped establish a multinational consortium and created the Engineered Stone Silicosis Investigators (ESSI) Global Silicosis Registry to analyze workplace exposure and clinical findings in engineered stone workers.
- In 2009, I created the Center for Deployment-related Lung Diseases. I developed collaborations with military and academic scientists and physicians in the Department of Defense (DOD), the Veterans Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, and laboratory-based scientists at National Jewish Health. I was principal investigator on a DOD-funded study to examine lung biopsy profiles among symptomatic post-9/11 veterans to Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2016, our multi-disciplinary group of investigators obtained DOD funding for a 5-year multi-project study to explore mechanisms and treatment of deployment-related epithelial lung injury. I am co-Principal Investigator on a clinical trial exploring the use of L-citrulline supplementation in improving deployment-related asthma. I served on the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) committees on The Assessment of the Dept. of Veterans Affairs Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit Registry and the Respiratory Health Effects of Airborne Hazards Exposures in the Southwest Asia Theater of Military Operations.
- My early work focused on antigen exposure characterization and outbreak investigations of hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP). I described the first reported outbreak of “lifeguard lung” and co-led the program on noninfectious granulomatous pneumonitis at National Jewish Health. I was co-investigator on an NIH-funded multi-center study investigating the causes of sarcoidosis. Our team recently described the histopathologic features of silicosarcoidosis from dust-exposed occupations. I have an on-going interest in causation and prevention of exposure-related granulomatous lung diseases.