Campfield Receives R01 Award

Pitt Pediatrics congratulates Brian Campfield, MD, on his R01 award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for his project titled “Follistatin-like 1 Mediated Host Defense in Bacterial Pneumonia.” 

Bacterial pneumonia is a major health burden worldwide as the leading cause of death in children and the leading infectious cause of death in the U.S, costing more than $17 billion. Antibiotic resistance (AR) increasingly complicates pneumonia treatment and poses a national and worldwide public health crisis, making new treatment approaches an urgent need. Follistatin-like protein 1 (FSTL-1) is a novel host immunomodulator in the lung, though the role of FSTL-1 in lung host defense is unknown. Campfield and team aim to determine the molecular and cellular requirements of FSTL-1-mediated pulmonary host defense pathway, and outcomes of these studies will inform host-derived, immune targeting therapeutic approaches for the treatment of bacterial pneumonia.