Carolyn Hendrickson, MD, MPH
Dr. Hendrickson is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy, Immunology, and Sleep Medicine at UCSF. She is an attending physician at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. Her research focuses on understanding the biology driving the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) after severe traumatic injury. ARDS is a form of acute lung injury marked by low oxygen levels and associated with significant morbidity and mortality among patients with critical illness. This project studies how environmental exposures, including tobacco smoke, air pollution, and alcohol use effect the risk of developing ARDS after trauma. This work uses biomarkers to measure exposures to cigarette smoke and alcohol and to understand how these exposures may interact with exposure to ambient air pollution. Dr. Hendrickson is implementing a prospective cohort study in Fresno, California, a region with very poor air quality, to measure plasma proteins associated with inflammation and the regulation of the vascular endothelium among patients who have suffered acute traumatic injuries. She will compare these protein levels between people who have varying degrees of exposure to air pollution, tobacco smoke, and alcohol use. This research may improve our understanding of the pathogenesis of ARDS with the ultimate goal of developing new preventative strategies for this syndrome perhaps through regulation of environmental exposures or public health campaigns.