Department of Medicine
University of Pittsburgh
Timothy E. Corcoran, PhD
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Assistant Professor of Medicine and Bioengineering Phone: 412-692-2880 |
Bio
Dr. Corcoran is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Division. He also holds secondary appointments in the Departments of Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, and in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He completed his Ph.D. in Bioengineering at Carnegie Mellon University in 2000, after completing his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering at Lehigh University. He received the Young Investigator Award from the International Society for Aerosols in Medicine in 2007.
Academic and Research Interests
Dr. Corcoran’s primary research interest is aerosol drug delivery. This includes pre-clinical development of new aerosol medications, the modeling of aerosol deposition, and the performance of aerosol deposition and pharmacokinetic studies. He has been extensively involved in the development of inhaled medications for lung transplant recipients and patients with cystic fibrosis. He has also been involved with the development special techniques for improving inhaled drug delivery such as the use of low density gases and surfactants to improve drug distribution in the lungs. Dr. Corcoran has also been involved in the development of aerosol based techniques for measuring both mucociliary and absorptive clearance in the lungs using radiopharmaceuticals and nuclear medicine imaging.
Aerosol deposited in the transplanted lung of a single lung transplant recipient. |
Deposited aerosol medication in the lungs of a double lung transplant recipient. Inhaled immunosuppressant medications developed at the University of Pittsburgh have been shown to increase survival in lung transplant recipients |
Mucociliary clearance in the lungs of a cystic fibrosis patient. This technique can be used to develop therapies for cystic fibrosis lung disease.
Animation depicting the deposition of an inhaled anti-fungal medication in the lungs of a lung transplant recipient. |
Key Publications
Marcinkowski AL, Garoff S, Tilton RD, Pilewski JM, Corcoran TE. Postdeposition Dispersion of Aerosol Medications Using Surfactant Carriers. J Aerosol Med Pulm Drug Deliv. 2008 Sep 18. [Epub ahead of print]
Corcoran TE, Venkataramanan R, Mihelc KM, Marcinkowski AL, Ou J, McCook BM, Weber L, Carey ME, Paterson DL, Pilewski JM, McCurry KR, Husain S. Aerosol deposition of lipid complex amphotericin-B (Abelcet) in lung transplant recipients. Am J Transplant. 2006 Nov;6(11):2765-73.
Corcoran TE. Inhaled delivery of aerosolized cyclosporine. Adv Drug Deliv Rev. 2006 Oct 31;58(9-10):1119-27.
PubMed Link
News
Dr. Corcoran's research has been reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Science Daily.