Cristina Alvira, MD

PSCDP Council Member
M_PEDS-CRITICAL CARE

I am a pediatric critical care physician and pulmonary vascular biologist. My NIH funded research program is focused on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate lung vascular development, injury, and repair, with particular emphasis on the role of the pulmonary endothelium in coordinating lung growth and regeneration. My laboratory studies how specialized endothelial cell populations communicate with epithelial, mesenchymal, and immune cells to establish and maintain the alveolar-capillary interface, and how these interactions are disrupted by injury.

A major focus of our research is understanding how developmental and injury-associated signaling pathways regulate endothelial cell identity, plasticity, and function. Her laboratory combines genetic mouse models with single-cell and spatial genomic approaches to investigate endothelial heterogeneity and vascular–parenchymal crosstalk in the developing and injured lung. This work seeks to identify mechanisms that contribute to impaired lung development and pathologic vascular remodeling in diseases such as bronchopulmonary dysplasia and pulmonary hypertension, with the ultimate goal of identifying new strategies to promote lung vascular and alveolar repair.

Publications

Novel Netrin-1-Unc5b-Klf4 axis balances AT2 survival in experimental bronchopulmonary dysplasia.

American journal of respiratory cell and molecular biology

Klymenko O, Mohr J, Danopoulos S, Mižík I, Kuiper-Makris C, Stephan S, Mahjoub MA, Alvira CM, Rheindorf D, Imhof T, Akgül S, Donato M, Ebert LK, Müller S, Vohlen C, Hirani D, Bartenhagen C, Bartkuhn M, Procida T, Schermer B, Khatri P, Bellusci S, Goth K, Alexopoulos I, Georgomanolis T, Pryhuber GS, Pullamsetti SS, Seeger W, Al Alam D, Dötsch J, Koch M, Alejandre Alcazar MA

Studying the Pulmonary Endothelium in Health and Disease: An Official American Thoracic Society Workshop Report.

American journal of respiratory cell and molecular biology

Hough RF, Alvira CM, Bastarache JA, Erzurum SC, Kuebler WM, Schmidt EP, Shimoda LA, Abman SH, Alvarez DF, Belvitch P, Bhattacharya J, Birukov KG, Chan SY, Cornfield DN, Dudek SM, Garcia JGN, Harrington EO, Hsia CCW, Islam MN, Jonigk DD, Kalinichenko VV, Kolb TM, Lee JY, Mammoto A, Mehta D, Rounds S, Schupp JC, Shaver CM, Suresh K, Tambe DT, Ventetuolo CE, Yoder MC, Stevens T, Damarla M

Wnt7a deficit is associated with dysfunctional angiogenesis in pulmonary arterial hypertension.

The European respiratory journal

Chakraborty A, Nathan A, Orcholski M, Agarwal S, Shamskhou EA, Auer N, Mitra A, Guardado ES, Swaminathan G, Condon DF, Yu J, McCarra M, Juul NH, Mallory A, Guzman-Hernandez RA, Yuan K, Rojas V, Crossno JT, Yung LM, Yu PB, Spencer T, Winn RA, Frump A, Karoor V, Lahm T, Hedlin H, Fineman JR, Lafyatis R, Knutsen CNF, Alvira CM, Cornfield DN, de Jesus Perez VA