Description of Clinical Expertise

Dr. Mangalmurti serves as an attending physician for the Medical Intensive Care Unit and the Procedure and Resuscitation Service at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Mangalmurti’s clinical interests include acute lung injury and the management of the critically ill patient.

Description of Research Expertise

I am a physician-scientist with a clinical practice in critical care, and a research program focused on syndromes affecting the critically ill. These syndromes include sepsis, the dysregulated host response to infection, and ARDS, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. A comprehensive mechanistic understanding of the host response during sepsis is imperative because the aberrant host response rather than the pathogen itself often drives organ failure and mortality. While other enucleate cells such as platelets play a vital role in innate immunity, astonishingly little is known about RBC immune function. RBCs are the most abundant circulating cell in the body and have a tremendous capacity to modulate inflammatory responses due to their large surface area and constant contact with circulating pathogen and host-derived inflammatory mediators. My lab's overarching long-term objective is to define RBCs' immunomodulatory functions that may alter the immune response to pathogens and sterile injury. My lab has two broad, but related themes focused on innate immunity and inflammation in the vascular compartment.