Mauricio Rojas, MD
Mauricio Rojas, MD
Mauricio Rojas is an Associate Professor and Scientific Director of the Simmons Center for Interstitial Lung Diseases at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Rojas received his undergraduate medical degree from the National University of Colombia and completed his postdoctoral training in Immunology at the Institute of Immunology, Colombia and Vanderbilt University. He has been a member of the American Thoracic Society since 2002. Dr. Rojas is a co-founder of the Stem Cell Working Group (2009) and a founder of the Aging Working Group, which he currently chairs. He received the Service Award from the RCMB Assembly in 2011 and the Carol Basaum Award in 2014.
Dr. Rojas is a pioneer in the research of Mesenchymal Stem Cells as a mechanism of lung repair and the study of lung aging as a critical factor in the vulnerability to lung diseases. His ongoing projects include functional consequences of age-related exhaustion and senescence of mesenchymal cells and the development of human preclinical models for lung therapies. Emory University recognized his contributions with the Pulmonary Star Award in 2007 and the Early Career Award from the Department of Medicine in 2009. Subsequently, Dr. Rojas received the Dorothy Dillon Ewason Lecture Award for the American Federation of Aging (AFAR) in 2009, the Established Investigator Award from the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation in 2013, and the Faculty Translation Award from the Division of Pulmonary at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Rojas’s research focuses on
- Aging of stem cells and disease susceptibility
- Cell therapy for the treatment of acute and chronic respiratory distress syndrome