One of the most important priorities for the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center has been the development of a research program that encompasses clinical science, basic science and translational science. Through stable, endowment based funding in conjunction with Extramural NIH funding we have performed a number of basic science projects, multi-center trials, investigator initiated studies, and industry supported research. For the past five years we have also worked with the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) under the auspices of the Doris Duke Clinical Research (DDCRC) Fellowship for Medical Students in order to conduct rigorous, high quality translational research in the Burn Center.

Goals:

• To perform world-quality translational and basic science research into the immune consequences of burn injury.
• To forge productive collaborations with renowned investigators.
• To translate this research into clinical research and beneficial clinical interventions.

Current Staff:

• Robert Maile, PhD, Assistant Professor 
• Sivaram Vadlamudi, PhD, Research Specialist / Laboratory Manager 
• Ali Irshad, BS, Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellow
• Crystal Neely, BS, PhD Graduate Student trainee

Interests:

• Burn patient susceptibility to infection due to injury-induced immunosuppression
• Translating controlled murine models of burn injury into data for clinic research and interventions for burn patients rejecting

Current research questions include:

• What is the role of persistent hyper-responsive CD8+ memory T cells that are generated after burn injury?

• Can we use high throughput genomic and proteomic techniques to define the state of the immune system after burn injury?

• Is burn-mediated immune suppression caused by an influx of macrophages with an altered phenotype and innate response to microbial products?

• Does burn injury promote reactivation of latent viruses?

• Can we harness stem cells to allow acceptance of skin allograft?

Publications...