Jing Wang, B.Med., Ph.D.

1. Macrophage mediated fungal clearance and lung injury during
Pneumocystis pneumonia
2. Mechanism of immune mediated lung injury during infectious diseases
3. Seeking new strategies to treat inflammatory lung diseases

Pneumocystis is an opportunistic fungal respiratory pathogen that causes life-threatening pneumonia in patients suffering from defects in cell-mediated immunity, including those with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and immunosuppression secondary to chemotherapy or organ transplantation. Despite dramatic advances in health care and the availability of antibiotics to treat this infection, mortality rates have improved little over the past 25 years. Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia remains a leading cause of death among HIV-infected patients and a significant cause of AIDS-related mortality and morbidity. This highlights the need for better understanding of the pathogenesis of the disease, and underscores the necessity of investigating new therapeutic strategies.

My research uses Pneumocystis pneumonia as one of the models to study the mechanisms of lung injury. I use a variety of immunology, imaging, and cell biological techniques to study the role of alveolar macrophage phenotype during inflammatory lung diseases.

The specific goals of my research are to: 1) determine the functional changes in alveolar macrophages during inflammatory lung diseases, and 2) evaluate the feasibility of using specific macrophage phenotype subsets as adjunctive treatments to ameliorate inflammatory lung diseases.