Journal of Allergy & Therapy

Mauricio Rojas

Mauricio Rojas, MD
Assistant Professor, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine
University of Pittsburgh, USA

Biography

Dr. Rojas received his MD degree from the Universidad Nacional of Colombia Medical School in Bogota, Colombia. After having the positions of Research Trainee and Research Associate in Colombia at the National Institute of Immunology, he moved to Vanderbilt University. There, he received postdoctoral training as a Fellow in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. During this time, Dr. Rojas had seminal contributions in the study of the signaling of Epithermal Growth Factor that resulted in the creation of a novel technique that allows the in vivo regulation of growth factors. This work is part of a worldwide patent. After finishing his postdoctoral training, he began as a Junior Faculty at the Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology where he continued to work in the regulation of growth factors signaling. He moved to Emory University in 2002 as an Assistant Professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine in the Department of Medicine and Scholar of the McKelvey Lung Transplantation Center. In 2010, Dr. Rojas joined the faculty of the Dorothy P. and Richard P. Simmons Center for Interstitial Lung Diseases at the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He also was appointed as faculty at the McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, in 2010 and faculty of Regenerative Medicine and the Stem Cell Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh in 2011.

 

Research Interest

• The focus of Dr. Rojas’ research is finding the role of Mesenchymal Stem Cells in lung repair after injury.

• Dr. Rojas’ immediate goal is to expand the understanding of the immune and cellular mechanisms used by mesenchymal stem cells to prevent lung injury, and the regulation of their migration and recruitment to the injury site.