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 The
research training program faculty forms a coherent group of physicians,
scientists and engineers with complementary and overlapping research
interests and goals. The major departments and units represented
in the training program include the MGH Burn and Trauma Services
and the MIT Departments of Mechanical, Electrical, and Chemical
Engineering. These collaborative and interdisciplinary activities
are supplemented by substantially-developed core facilities within
the MGH Burn Research Center, which provides substantial "hands-on"
teaching and training resources for the trainees. Each faculty member
has state-of-the-art research facilities in his or her area of expertise,
and all are supported by federal research funding.
Relationship to Other NIH Traininq Proqrams
at MGH
The MGH has 18 NIH-sponsored training grants. Of the participating
faculty in the Burns and Trauma Research Training program, the programs
in radiological sciences, nuclear magnetic resonance, lung cell
and molecular biology, and digestive diseases overlap. Additional
fellowships are available through institutional funds including
the Surgical Service at MGH and the Shriners Hospital for Children
Fellowship Program.
Program Faculty
The training faculty have been selected on the basis of their research
expertise, proven ability and willingness to engage in collaborative,
interdisciplinary work, national and international scientific reputations,
proven ability to attract continuing external research support,
and established records of didactic and research training in at
least one of the two focused areas of research training for this
program. The overall balance of the faculty in terms of interests,
age, and rank is relatively senior compared to the typical Harvard
and MIT academic environment. Click
here for the faculty list.
 Pertinent
Research Interests of the Training Faculty
The research in the training program continues to be primarily focused
on the MGH Burn Research Center activities with selected research
opportunities in the Center for Engineering in Medicine. Although
the fields of expertise of the training faculty cover a broad spectrum
of problems related to burns and trauma, the varied research interests
of the faculty might be broadly categorized into two areas:
- Alterations in metabolism produced by burn injury (Tompkins,
Burke, Hales, Martyn, Avruch, Fischman, Toner, Yarmush, and Kelleher)
- Bioengineering applications in the treatment of injury including
tissue engineering and artificial organ development (Tompkins,
Burke, Ausubel, Stephanopoulos, Toner, and Yarmush)
Alterations in Metabolism Produced by Burn
Injury
The MGH Burn Research Center's unifying hypothesis underlying the
plan of research is that severe burn injury initiates a unique series
of changes in both the homeostasis of nitrogen metabolism and that
of the major energy yielding substrates, glucose and lipids.
A major focus of our research concerns the impact of nutritional,
hormonal, and pathophysiological factors on in
vivo aspects of substrate metabolism in human subjects.
Project 1. Tissue-Specific Metabolic Response to Injury (Tompkins,
Martyn, Fischman)
Project 2. Molecular Mechanisms of Burn-Induced Insulin Resistance
(Tompkins, Avruch, Toner, Fischman)
Project 3. Molecular Basis of Hepatic Hypermetabolism in Burns (Yarmush,
Stephanopoulos, Tompkins, Toner, Kelleher)
Project 4. Smoke Inhalation and the Mechanisms of Smoke Injury (Hales,
Fischman, Tompkins)
Bioengineering Applications in the Treatment
of Injury, Including Tissue Engineering and Artificial Organ Development
Bioengineering is a dynamic and expanding field that strives to make
improvements in patient care and quality of life through the application
of principles and tools of the physical and biological sciences.
There are several bioengineering research opportunities in burns and
trauma available within the training program.
Project 1. Development of a Bioartificial Liver for Post-Burn Liver
Failure (Tompkins, Yarmush, Toner)
Project 2. Development of Skin Replacement Materials (Burke, Toner,
Tompkins)
Project 3. Living Cell Arrays for Functional Genomics Studies of
Hypermetabolism (Yarmush, Stephanopoulos, Toner)
Project 4. Bioinformatics Studies to Probe Immuno-Inflammatory
Host Response to Injury (Tompkins, Yarmush, Stephanopoulos, Toner)
Trainee Participation in the Research
In the projects related to “Alterations in Metabolism Produced
by Burn Injury,” the trainee is involved in human metabolic
studies.
In the projects related to “Bioengineering Applications in
the Treatment of Injury,” instruction in basic science, engineering,
and physical chemistry as well as in analytic techniques is provided.
The trainee is integrated into the overall training program with
full participation in all clinical and basic science aspects of
our program.
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