Tobacco Effects

The short and long term effects of cigarette smoking and other forms of tobacco use on health.
  • Impact of Cigarette Smoke Exposure on Acute Lung Injury

    We are studying the effects of both active smoking and secondhand smoke exposure on susceptibility to acute lung injury, a major cause of respiratory failure among critically ill patients.

    Carolyn Calfee, MD
    Assistant Professor of Medicine
  • Mobile Health Tool for Lung Cancer (mHealthTLC)

     Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women. Lung cancer is unique because of racial disparity, persistent mortality rate, and social stigma. African- Americans are more likely than whites to avoid an evaluation for lung cancer, be diagnosed later with more advanced lung cancer, wait longer after diagnosis to receive treatment, refuse treatment, and more likely to die in the hospital after surgery.

    Janine Cataldo, PhD RN
    Assistant Professor, Department of Physiological Nursing - Gerontology
  • Personalized Medicine for Colorectal and Breast Cancer

    Major goals: To use an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to obtain evidence about key aspects of the translation of genomic information for breast and colorectal cancer into clinical practice and health policy.

    Robert Hiatt, MD PhD
    Professor
  • Long-Term Vascular Effects of Second Hand Smoke

    We are assessing the dose- and time-response of vascular functional impairment caused by exposure to second hand smoke at very low levels and short exposure times in rats.  

    Matthew Springer, PhD
    Associate Professor of Medicine
  • Pharmacologic Basis of Racial Difference in Nicotine Dependence

    AA and EA smokers undergo detailed monitoring of smoking behavior, receive known doses of nicotine to establish nicotine metabolic rate, undergo DNA testing, and have their responses to not smoking for several hours studied. Exposure to carcinogens and other tobacco smoke toxins is also measured.  It is hypothesized that there are racial differences in metabolism that may explain different patterns of smoking, and that this in turn influences the reasons why smokers continue to self-administer nicotine (i.e., continue to smoke).

    Neal Benowitz, MD
    Professor of Medicine, Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences
  • Rate of Nicotine Metabolism and Withdrawal Symptoms in Adolescent Light Smokers

    The goal of this study was to examine the associations between the rate of nicotine metabolism and cigarette consumption, addiction and withdrawal symptoms.

    Mark Rubinstein, MD
    Assistant Adjunct Professor
  • The Identification of Molecular Sub-phenotypes of Asthma and COPD

    These studies are funded by:

    1) An R01 grant  from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health. The grant is entitled “Molecular Phenotyping of Asthma” (R01 HL-095372) which has applied genomic analyses to airway samples from patients with asthma to distinguish Th2-driven and non-Th2-driven sub-phenotypes of asthma that have distinct clinical, pathological and treatment-related characteristics.

    Prescott Woodruff, MD, MPH
    Assistant Professor of Medicine in Residence