Acute Care Surgery, Trauma & Surgical Critical Care Research

Research in Trauma and Surgical Critical Care

The Division of Acute Care Surgery, Trauma and Surgical Critical Care at BIDMC provides exceptional, state-of-the-art care for adults who require emergency surgery because of an accident or sudden illness. Our team is with patients every step of the way throughout the patient's evaluation, surgery, hospitalization and discharge through our Acute Care Surgery Clinic.

In addition to providing excellent care, the surgeons in the Division of Acute Care Surgery, Trauma, and Surgical Critical Care are all engaged in trauma and surgical critical care research.

Trauma, hemorrhagic shock, and burns initiate cellular immune responses with detrimental effects on the clinical outcome of trauma patients. In the early phase after trauma, overwhelming inflammation causes neutrophil activation and subsequent organ damage that can result in adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and multiple organ failure (MOF).

In the later phase after trauma, suppressive mediators found in the circulation of patients decrease the ability of lymphocytes to protect the trauma victim from invading microorganisms. This can lead to severe infections and sepsis that are major reasons for trauma deaths.

Trauma and surgical critical care research within our division focuses on the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in the cellular immune response to trauma and novel therapeutic approaches to modulate this response.

Acute Care Laboratory

Our acute care research teams explore the most pressing questions facing this critical area of medicine:

• Junger Lab: The Junger Lab studies the molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in certain inflammatory responses.