Dr. Frank Sciurba, M.D. is a Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Director of the Emphysema/COPD research center, and director of the clinical pulmonary physiology laboratories and pulmonary rehabilitation program. He received his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois and attended Medical school at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. Dr. Sciurba’s research has been inspired by real clinical problems facing his patients. His research interests and published work includes physiologic and quantitative imaging assessment in chronic cardiopulmonary disease, the role of autoimmunity and inflammation relating lung to comorbid conditions, elucidating and utilizing various exercise methodologies to assess outcome in chronic disease, the impact of exercise training in cardiopulmonary disease, the statin, long term oxygen and mepolizumab clinical trials in COPD, and assessing protein and cellular biomarker associations with subphenotypes and comorbidities in COPD. He has demonstrated an ability to communicate with basic scientists in extending meaningful translational and reverse translational collaborations. He has co-authored over 200 peer reviewed manuscripts and has had continuous NIH funding for 20 years. Dr. Sciurba's current leadership positions include: His role as a Principle Investigator of the Network Management Core of the NHLBI sponsored Pulmonary Trials Consortium (PTC) which manages the execution of pragmatic, “real world” studies in a variety of chronic pulmonary conditions; and his role as academic chair of the COPD Biomarker Qualification Committee (CBQC), a group that works with the FDA to address the need for new biomarkers to facilitate development of drugs and devices for chronic pulmonary conditions. He is also on the regional board of the American Lung Association.
