Vibha N. Lama, MD, MS, to serve as the Vice Chair of Research for Emory’s Department of Medicine and join McKelvey Lung Transplant Center at Emory University

We are excited to announce that Vibha Lama, MD, MS, will join Emory School of Medicine on May 1, 2023, as the Department of Medicine’s Vice Chair of Research, the Augustus J. McKelvey Chair in Lung Transplantation Medicine, and the Director of a new Comprehensive Lung Disease Program within the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine.

Dr. Lama earned her medical degree from Dayanand Medical College in India and completed her residency in internal medicine at Wayne State University. After finishing her pulmonary and critical care fellowship at the University of Michigan she joined as faculty there in 2002. Dr. Lama presently serves as Henry Sewall Research Professor in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, and Professor and Vice Chair of Basic and Translational Research in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan.

Her research focuses on regenerative and fibrotic pathways in the lungs that are common to several pulmonary conditions. A leader in her field, Dr. Lama is renowned nationally and internationally for her pioneering work in the fields of lung-resident mesenchymal stem cells and lung transplantation.

Dr. Lama is a serially funded principal investigator with grants from the NIH, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and other entities, and she has led clinical trials related to anti-fibrotic compounds. Dr. Lama has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles in her field. These include first and senior-authored papers in publications such as Journal of Clinical Investigation, Journal of Biological Chemistry, JCI Insight, American J Respiratory & Critical Care Medicine, American J Pathology, Stem Cells, and J Immunology. Among her many distinctions, she is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and the American Association of Physicians (AAP).

As the Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Medicine, Dr. Lama will be a key part of the Department’s research leadership team and identify strategic research priorities and projects for the Department. She will oversee events and programs such as DOM Research Day, FAME grants, R2Nexus, and the Data Analytics and Bio Statistics Core. She will serve as a liaison to the Research Administration Services (RAS), the Office of Clinical Research (OCR), Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), Division of Animal Resources (DAR), the Institutional Review Board (IRB) as well as the University, the School of Medicine, and other institutional research committees.

“Dr. Lama is a renowned physician, researcher, and pulmonologist and we are thrilled to have her join the DOM leadership team,” says David Stephens, MD, Chair of the Department of Medicine, Vice President for Research of Woodruff Health Sciences Center, and the Stephen W. Schwarzmann Distinguished Professor of Medicine. “She has an impressive background in clinical, translational, and innovative discovery research, and we are excited to see Dr. Lama’s impact as she will play a critical role in not only forming the new Comprehensive Lung Disease Program but also expanding and enhancing the DOM Office of Research as the Vice Chair.”

As the inaugural director of the newly formed Comprehensive Lung Disease Program, Dr. Lama will collaborate with Greg Martin, MD, MSc, Division Director of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, to lead the creation, expansion, implementation, and promotion of the chronic lung diseases and lung transplantation programs. Dr. Martin welcomed Dr. Lama and commented, “Dr. Lama is an exciting and important new faculty member at Emory who will play important roles in the division as well as serve as a nucleus that spurs new areas of investigation with our faculty and fellows.” Dr. Lama will develop and lead clinical and research aspects of this program and her responsibilities will include recruiting research and clinical faculty, program coordination, and administrative oversight within the division.

In her role as the Augustus J. McKelvey Chair in Lung Transplantation Medicine, she will work at the McKelvey Lung Transplant Center at Emory University which offers the only lung transplant program in Georgia. The Center specializes in the treatment of complex lung disorders and offers the full continuum of high-level care involved in lung transplantation. “We are thrilled to have Dr. Lama joining the Transplant Center. Her experience and expertise will greatly expand the ability to provide state-of-the-art care at the only lung transplant program in Georgia,” says Thomas Pearson, MD, PhD, the Livingston Professor of Surgery in the Division of Transplantation within Emory’s Department of Surgery. To date, Emory has performed 500 lung transplants and is at the forefront of clinical excellence, innovative transplant therapies, and outstanding pre-and post-transplant care.

As Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine, Dr. Lama will report to David Stephens, MD, Chair of the Department of Medicine, and as a Pulmonary faculty member, she will report to the Pulmonary Division Director Greg Martin, MD, MSc. Dr. Lama is stepping into this role after Kathy Griendling, PhD, who served as Vice Chair of Research for over 12 years. The Department of Medicine would like to extend our sincere appreciation for her dedication to this position. Thanks to her incredible vision, the department is seen as a leader in the medical community.

For more about research in the Department of Medicine and details about the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, read more below.

More about research in the Department of Medicine:

Basic scientists, clinical researchers, and clinicians in the Department of Medicine work side-by-side to explore and solve fundamental problems in human disease. Their collaborative efforts enable them to take mechanistic discoveries to preclinical testing and first-in-human clinical trials. Cross-cutting programs include regenerative medicine, vaccine testing and development, immunology and inflammation, outcomes and health services research, and the molecular basis of disease. The Department of Medicine Office of Research offers many support programs and resources to help faculty and postdoctoral fellows with their research endeavors.

During FY 2022, the Department of Medicine was awarded over $252.9 million in research funding, with over 200 Emory DOM principal investigators. Among those grants are 17 active National Institute of Health career development K awards, 62 active R01’s, and several multi-disciplinary NIH center grants such as the Georgia CTSA, the Center for AIDS Research, and the Atlanta Center for Microsystems Engineered Point-of-Care Technologies. Last year, over 1,200 faculty publications from 418 contributing faculty and the department faculty conducted 428 active clinical trials with 9,526 enrollees.

More about the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine:

The Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine has an unyielding commitment to patient care, research, and training the next generation of researchers and clinicians.

The division offers a wide range of clinical services including general and specialized ambulatory clinics, in-patient pulmonary consultation, and critical care services. In addition, it provides specialized services related to allergy/immunology, acute and chronic lung diseases, pulmonary rehabilitation, lung transplantation, sleep disorders, sepsis, and acute respiratory failure, among many other conditions. These activities are delivered as self-standing enterprises or as components of multi-disciplinary comprehensive translational research centers.

The Emory Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine faculty see patients at Emory University Hospital, Emory University Hospital Midtown, Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital, Emory Johns Creek Hospital, the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and Grady Memorial Hospital.

Research in the Emory Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine covers a broad range of topics, including laboratory science investigations into pulmonary vascular diseases, tight junctions and lung barrier function, metabolomics of nutritional and environmental factors that underlie human health and disease, the effects of chronic alcohol consumption on susceptibility to lung injury, basic mechanisms of lung development and factors that control lung inflammation, injury, and repair/regeneration, translational studies of disease pathogenesis and novel biomarkers, and clinical/epidemiological studies in asthma, cystic fibrosis, pulmonary fibrosis, tuberculosis, sepsis, acute respiratory failure/ARDS, pulmonary hypertension, contributors to health disparities, and novel biomedical diagnostics.

This work is currently funded by federal (National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority), industry, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and private foundations.