Department of Medicine
University of Pittsburgh
M. Patricia George, MD
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Assistant Professor of Medicine UPMC Montefiore Hospital - NW628 3459 Fifth Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Phone: 412-692-2210 |
Bio
Patricia George received her M.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 2001. After completing her Osler internship and residency at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland, she pursued training in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. While in fellowship, her clinical and research interests centered on lung transplantation and lung disease in immunocompromised hosts. She trained under the mentorship of Steven Duncan, Alison Morris, and Karen Norris. In July 2008, Dr. George joined the Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, and is pursuing her clinical and research interests.
Clinical Interests
Dr. George’s clinical interests focus on lung transplantation. She serves as a member of the lung transplant faculty, and provides the primary transplant-related care for a cohort of outpatients. In addition, she works as a member of the inpatient transplant medicine service for several weeks of the year.
She is interested in expanding the Division’s clinical research in lung transplant outcomes and exploring risk factors for post-transplant complications.
Academic and Research Interests
Dr. George’s research interests revolve around chronic lung disease in HIV-infected individuals. She is currently exploring two major avenues of investigation.
In her primary project, she is exploring the impact of immune restoration through highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) on the pathogenesis of COPD. In a recent study of 234 HIV-infected outpatients, Dr. George and her mentor, Dr. Alison Morris, demonstrated that several clinical characteristics were associated with decrease in FEV1/FVC. In addition to increased age, pack-year smoking history, and history of bacterial pneumonia, they found that the use of HAART itself was an independent predictor of a lower FEV1/FVC. Dr. George is further exploring the hypothesis that immune restoration through HAART leads to increased airway obstruction/COPD via propagation of a chronic inflammatory response to pulmonary pathogens and/or autoantigens.
Her second main project focuses on HIV-related pulmonary hypertension in a nonhuman primate model. Under the mentorship of Dr. Karen Norris, Dr. George has discovered that cynamolgus macaques infected with Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), and Simian/Human Immunodeficiency Virus expressing the HIV-1 derived env gene (SHIV-env) develop pulmonary vascular lesions (mainly intimal and medial hyperplasia of medium and large arteries) consistent with pulmonary arteriopathy. She is using this model to further explore factors important in the development of HIV-related pulmonary hypertension.
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Examples of representative pulmonary hypertension lesions on H&E stain. Medial hyperplasia in SHIV-env-infected macaque (left), and complex vascular lesion with recannalization in SIV-infected macaque (right).
Key Publications
Studer SM, George MP, Zhu X, Song Y, Valentine VG, Stoner MW, Sethi J, Steele C, Duncan SR. CD28 down-regulation on CD4 T cells is a marker for graft dysfunction in lung transplant recipients. AJRCCM; 2008: 178(7): 765-73.
Feghali-Bostwick CA, Tsai CG, Valentine VG, Kantrow S, Stoner MW, Pilewski JM, Gadgil A, George MP, Gibson KF, Choi AM, Kaminski N, Zhang Y, Duncan SR. Cellular and humoral autoreactivity in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. J Immunol 2007;179(4): 2592-9.