Loren E Smith

Research in the Smith lab focuses on the inflammatory and endothelial response to acute surgical stress. Clinical outcomes of interest include postoperative acute kidney injury and delirium. Study techniques include clinical studies of surgical patients, in vivo mechanistic studies (mice), and in vitro human primary cell experiments. Current studies focus on single-cell spatial transcriptomic characterization of the human endothelial response to surgery including cell-cell interaction prediction modeling as well as characterization of the surgically triggered “genomic storm” in human PBMCs and endothelial cells. The laboratory also has ongoing projects examining the protective role of high-density lipoproteins in these biological pathways and processes, with the goal of developing novel lipoprotein-based therapies for perioperative protection.