David Kamp, MD
Professor, Medicine, Pulmonary Division; Feinberg School of Medicine
Research Program
- Translational Research in Malignancy (TRIM)
Cancer-Focused Research
The goal of our research is to determine the mechanisms underlying asbestos-induced alveolar epithelial cell (AEC) injury. Accumulating evidence strongly implicate a key role of AEC apoptosis in the pathophysiologic response of the lung epithelium during injury and repair following exposure to a wide array of agents, including asbestos, that can cause pulmonary fibrosis. Our group has been using the asbestos paradigm to elucidate the important cellular and molecular mechanisms involved with the goal of identifying pharmacologically relevant targets. We established a key role for mitochondrial ROS and p53 in promoting intrinsic AEC apoptosis following asbestos exposure and, more recently, showed that 8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase (OGG1) chaperoning of mitochondrial aconitase (ACO-2) prevents oxidant-induced AEC (Mt) DNA damage and intrinsic AEC apoptosis.