Nationally-Recognized Physician-Scientist Allan Doctor Joins University of Maryland School of Medicine; Will Lead New Research Center
Steven J. Czinn, MD, The Drs. Rouben and Violet Jiji Endowed Professor and Chair, Department of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), and Adnan T. Bhutta, MMBS, FAAP, Professor and Division Head in the UMSOM Department of Pediatrics, along with UMSOM Dean E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, announced today that nationally-recognized physician-scientist Allan Doctor, MD, will lead a new Center for Blood Oxygen Transport & Hemostasis in the UMSOM Department of Pediatrics. The new Center will help advance the development of an artificial blood product for use in trauma settings like battlefields or rural areas without easy access to donated blood for transfusions. In addition, Dr. Doctor will transfer his company, KaloCyte, to the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) Research Park Corp. He was previously a Professor of Pediatrics at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine (WUSTL) before joining the UMSOM as a Professor of Pediatrics.
The interdisciplinary Center for Blood Oxygen Transport & Hemostasis includes a team of physicians, biochemists, and engineers and will help answer fundamental, challenging questions related to blood function in the setting of critical illness. These include: determining how certain diseases and stress during trauma can influence red blood cell biology and oxygen delivery; discovering how red blood cells interact with the immune and hemostatic systems; finding ways to optimize blood product preparation and transfusion; developing state-of-the-art models and clinical trials to test engineered ‘bio-mimetic’ blood components that optimize oxygen transport and hemostasis.