Michael A. O'Reilly, Ph.D.

I am a Professor of Pediatrics and Environmental Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center with broad training in developmental biology, carcinogenesis, and lung disease. I am also Director of the Lung Biology and Disease Program, co-director of our T32 Pulmonary Training grant, a member of the admissions committee for the Medical Scientist Training Program and the Toxicology Graduate Program, and a member of the NIH study section Lung Injury Repair and Remodeling. I am broadly interested in understanding why preterm birth is a risk factor for cardiopulmonary disease later in life. Since preterm infants are born too soon into oxygen, my research uses mouse models and banked human tissues to understand how an abnormal oxygen environment at birth causes disease by altering postnatal development of the lung and heart. I have a strong track record of mentoring and training the next generation of scientists. I am proud to say that trainees who have graduated from my lab remain in science as Postdoctoral Fellows, Academic Physicians, NIH-funded scientists, and Program Directors in industry.

Professional Background

I grew up on Long Island and became interested in biological sciences when my 7th grade biology teacher brought clams from the Sound to school for us to dissect. I earned my undergraduate degree in Biology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1984 and my doctoral degree at the University of Cincinnati in 1989. My thesis research under the mentorship of Dr. Jeffrey Whitsett showed how the collagen domain was responsible for proper folding and secretion of surfactant protein A and how glucocorticoids regulate transcription of surfactant proteins A and B. As a postdoctoral fellow at the NIH, I sequenced and studied transcriptional regulation of transforming growth factor-beta2 with Drs. Michael Sporn and Anita Roberts, and learned how to created transgenic mice working with Drs. Heiner Westphal and Kathleen Mahon. I joined the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester in 1995 where I began to use my research training to investigate how high levels of oxygen (hyperoxia) inhibit cell proliferation via transforming growth factor-beta and p53 signaling. The preterm birth of my son in 2006 heavily motivated me to refocus my research towards understanding how early-life oxygen exposure reprograms lung development and cardiopulmonary health.

Research