Description of Research Expertise

Dr. Christie's career is focused on translational research studies of the risks, pathogenesis, treatment, and outcomes of acute lung injury in the transplant and non-transplant human populations. His research integrates new knowledge generated from bench studies with epidemiology approaches in well-phenotyped, large human populations to generate new definitions of human syndromes, improved diagnostics and prognostics, and targeted therapy approaches in advanced lung diseases and critical illness.

Dr. Christie is the founder of the lung transplant outcomes group (LTOG), which is a multicentered cohort study the etiology and pathogenesis of acute lung injury following lung transplantation (termed primary graft dysfunction). Active LTOG research themes focus on the mechanisms of clinical factors that elevate PGD risk, including donor smoke exposure, recipient obesity and body composition, pulmonary hypertension, alterations in lung microbiome, and autoimmunity to lung collagens. His multidisciplinary lung transplant research focuses on genetics, innate immunity, regulatory T-cells, innate lymphoid cell (ILC) populations in the lung, ischemia reperfusion injury, inflammation, and autoimmunity.