UPENN SOM || Cultural Competency Medical Education Program || Elena Atochina-Vasserman, MD

Elena Atochina-Vasserman, MD

Elena Atochina-Vasserman, M.D.,Ph.D, is a Senior Laboratory Investigator in the Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Division (PACCD) of the Department of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Atochina earned her M.D. from Tomsk Medical School and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1990 from Russian Cardiology Research Center, Moscow, Russia. She completed post-doctoral training at the University of Miami with Dr. James Ryan and at the University of Pennsylvania with Dr. Aron B. Fisher and Dr. Vladimir Muzykantov at the Institute for Environmental Medicine. Following three years as a Research Associate in the laboratory of Dr. Michael F. Beers, she was appointed as a Senior Laboratory Investigator and now directs the Lung Host Defense and Inflammation Core in Dr Beers' laboratory.

Dr. Atochina-Vasserman's early work included studies of selective vascular (in vivo) targeting of enzyme therapeutics for containment of oxidative and vascular stress, inflammation, endothelial injury and ischemia-reperfusion. More recently her work has focused primarily on the study of the response of the lung to a variety of challenges including Pneumocystis murina, Aspergilllus fumigatus, bleomycin, and hyperoxia. She has also examined the interrelationship between surfactant protein D and macrophage function with a special emphasis on the biochemistry of the structure-function changes induced by post translational modification of SP-D by nitric oxide.