Tissue Barriers in Disease, Injury and Regeneration

Dr. Gorbunov is currently Research Associate Professor with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Gorbunov received his Ph.D. from the Russian Academy Sciences in St. Petersburg, Russia. He then completed a two-year postdoctoral training in Biomedicine at the Research Center of the Consorzio "Mario Negri" Sud (Italy) and a two-year DOE postdoctoral training program in Radiation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public Health. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1994 and 2000 Dr. Gorbunov was a recipient of the National Research Council Fellowship Awards to pursue the NRC Senior Research Associateship at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR). A long-term interest is the tissue barrier homeostasis in traumatic injury, inflammation, stress, and immunosuppression. Working on models of blast-related injury in a research team Dr. Gorbunov described the mechanism of the inflammatory response to shock wave induced pulmonary trauma and defined the role of cell redox signaling in the related pulmonary microvascular remodeling. He introduced the redox metabolic machinery balanced by antioxidants as an "interface module" which mediates systemic response to the blast-induced oxidative stress. The current research interest is focused on innate defense mechanisms that underlie homeostatic responses of tissue barriers to radiation-induced injury and associated bacterial sepsis. He explores this area at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI) and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (Bethesda, Maryland).

1. Molecular and cellular fundamentals of homeostatic and defense responses of tissue barriers to damaging impacts and exposure to pathogens and engineered nano-materials 2. Role of mesenchymal stoma, vascular, epithelial, telocyte, myofibroblast, lymphoid, and reticuloendothelial cells in development of reactions that bridge effects of ambient factors, medical treatments, drag delivery systems with alterations in barrier integrity, tissue/organ functions and in metabolic status 3. Progenitor cells of different origins in remodeling and regeneration of tissue stroma 4. Vasculature of blood-tissue barriers, mucosa and external epithelium will be also addressed and discussed