 The
history of the MGH Burn Research Center in studying the inflammatory-induced
changes of metabolism is rich from the broad vision and pioneering
efforts of surgery professor Dr. John F. Burke
at MGH, who established the Center, and nutritional biologist Dr.
Vernon Young at MIT. Sadly, Dr. Young died in 2004, yet Dr.
John Burke continues to share his expertise and guidance as a consultant
to the Center. Dr. Ronald Tompkins became
the overall principal investigator and since 1992 he has led the internationally
respected group of investigators to advance the state of knowledge
about the metabolic changes produced by the profound inflammatory
state in burn injury.
The scientific leadership of the Center comprises six senior investigators,
all of whom hold professor-level appointments at Harvard Medical
School (Drs. Tompkins, Burke, Fischman, Avruch, Martyn and Schoenfeld).
Dr. Ronald G. Tompkins, the Sumner M. Redstone Professor of Surgery, Chief of the MGH Burn Service and
Shriners Chief of Staff, is recognized as an international leader
in burns and trauma, and serves as the principal investigator of
several NIH grants, including U54, P50 and T32 programs. Dr.
John Burke, who established the Center, has remained a highly
valued consultant to the Center since 1992. Dr.
Alan Fischman, the Chief of Nuclear Medicine at MGH, actively
participates in our research endeavor to quantitatively and non-invasively
determine individual organ contributions through his knowledge and
innovations in PET methodologies.
In 1998, the Center recruited Dr. Joseph
Avruch, the Chief of the Diabetes Unit at MGH, as insulin
is a very important anabolic signal in human physiology and potentially
in the pathophysiology of burn injury. Further, Dr. Avruch is an
internationally recognized biochemist and expert in signal transduction
pathways for insulin. His contributions are particularly timely
and beneficial because of the recently identified intermediate cellular
cascades (p38 and SAPK) and their potentially important physiological
roles in post-injury metabolism.
The Center’s investigations in the area of insulin resistance
are further enhanced with the recruitment of Dr.
Jeevendra Martyn to the Center. Dr. Martyn is an anesthesiologist
who is very active as a pharmacologist in the area of burn injury
and insulin resistance. Dr. Martyn currently holds two NIGMS R01
grants in this field of research. Dr. David
Schoenfeld is the Director of the MGH Biostatistics Center
and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has served
as a consultant to the Center for more than 20 years and has been
a frequent co-author of the Center publications. The recent recruitment
of Dr. Joanne Kelleher, a well-known
PhD investigator in isotope kinetics and intermediate metabolism,
further adds to our investigative team studying amino acid kinetics
during health and disease.
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