Andreas Schwingshackl, MD, PhD

Andreas Schwingshackl, MD, PhD
Division Chief, Associate Professor of Pediatrics

Dr. Schwingshackl obtained his medical degree from the University of Innsbruck in Austria and his doctorate in Physiology (Ph.D.) from the University of Alberta in Canada, where he subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Immunology. He is currently the lead investigator of the NIH-funded Pediatric Critical Care Research Laboratory. 

As a practicing Pediatric Critical Care Medicine clinician-scientist, Dr. Schwingshackl is interested in identifying new therapeutic interventions and molecular targets for rational drug design against Acute Lung Injury (ALI) and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). His training as an M.D. and Ph.D. provides the ideal framework for his NIH-funded research program to focus on approaches that manipulate the resting plasma membrane potential (Em) of lung resident and immune/inflammatory cells as a mechanism to protect against ALI/ARDS-induced lung injury. In search for new molecular targets against ALI/ARDS, Dr. Schwingshackl’s lab discovered the presence of stretch-activated K+ channels on lung resident and inflammatory cells, in particular 2-Pore Domain K+ (K2P) channels of the TREK subfamily and large conductance, Ca2+- activated (BK) K+ channels. He is proposing for the first time a role for TREK-1 and BK channels in TNF-α-, Hyperoxia- and Mechanical Ventilation-induced lung injury, as well as in virus- and bacteria-induced ALI/ARDS. His most recent studies harvest the cell membrane hyperpolarizing capabilities of these K+ channels as a tool to counteract alveolar inflammation and barrier dysfunction.

His work in this field has been recognized and supported by national and international funding agencies such as the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, the Austrian Hans and Blanca Moser Foundation, the University of Tennessee Children's Foundation Research Institute, the American Lung Association, and the National Institutes for Health (K12, K08, and R01 awards). Currently, Dr. Schwingshackl contributes to the field of pulmonary medicine by serving as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Pediatric Critical Care, as a standing member of the American Thoracic Society (ATS) Program Committee for Respiratory, Cell and Molecular Cell Biology and the American Heart Association (AHA) grant review panel (BSc Lung), and as an ad-hoc reviewer for more than 15 scientific journals. In 2017, the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) has rewarded his research efforts in pulmonary medicine with the prestigious Dorothy & Robert Keyser Endowed Chair in Pediatrics.