Description of Research Expertise

Dr. Shashaty's career is focused on epidemiologic and translational research studies of the risks for and mechanisms of acute organ dysfunction, primarily acute kidney injury (AKI), in critical illness and populations.

Dr. Shashaty has formal training in the clinical practice of pulmonary and critical care medicine, biostatistical and epidemiologic methods, and protein, gene expression, and genomic analyses of human biospecimens. He is the principal investigator for the Lung Transplant Outcomes Group–Acute Kidney Injury (LTOG-AKI) study, a multicenter prospective cohort of lung transplant recipients (n>1800) designed to study the clinical and molecular epidemiology of post-lung transplant AKI. The primary focus of this study is to determine clinical characteristics and novel blood and urine biomarkers that are useful for AKI prediction and may provide insight into molecular mechanisms of AKI after transplantation.

Dr. Shashaty is also the principal investigator for the ongoing Penn Trauma Organ Dysfunction Study (PETROS), a cohort of critically ill trauma patients (n>1300), and a co-investigator in Penn’s Molecular Epidemiology of Severe Sepsis in the ICU (MESSI) cohort, for which he leads studies of AKI. Current areas of study in these cohorts include elucidating mechanisms underlying the association of obesity and AKI, the relevance of programmed cell necrosis in human AKI and ARDS, circulating cell-free DNA as a mechanistic contributor to AKI and ARDS, and genetic risk factors for AKI.

Description of Clinical Expertise

Dr. Shashaty is specialty-trained in internal medicine, pulmonary diseases, and critical care medicine. He is an attending physician at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP), with the majority of his clinical time spent in the medical intensive care unit. He also attends on and is the service lead for the Critical Care Outreach and Procedure Service (CCOPS).

Dr. Shashaty is currently the Rapid Response Medical Director at HUP. In this capacity, he works with a multidisciplinary team to provide oversight, design and conduct training, and pursue quality improvement initiatives in the areas of clinical emergencies and management of cardiac arrest. He has played a central role in adapting HUP's clinical emergencies team to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Shashaty is actively engaged in teaching fellows, house officers, medical students, and advanced practice providers through both HUP clinical services, classes at the Perelman School of Medicine, and training programs at the Penn School of Nursing.