2008-2009 Monthly Meetings

Albuquerque Marriott, 2101 Louisiana Blvd., N.E., Albuquerque, NM 87110

No reservation needed!

Below, please find the list for the montly breakfasts to be held at the Albuquerque Uptown Marriott for 2008-2009. Please note that the schedule has changed and breakfasts will not always be on the same Friday every month.  Thank you!

This Month's Speaker:

Education and Honors: 1990, Medical School degree, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India; 1994, Residency, Internal Medicine, St. Luke'sHospital, Columbia University College of Physicians And Surgeons, NY; 1997, Masters in Public Health, Yale University, CT; 1997, Fellowships, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Occupational Medicine, Yale University, CT; 2006, UNM Clinical Translational Sciences Center Scholar Award ; 2006, UNM Office of Research Award for excellence in research to junior faculty; 2003, Kerrison Juniper, M.D., Memorial Award as the outstanding full time faculty subspecialist teacher at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and Affiliated hospitals, 1995, Occupational Physicians Scholarship, 1994, Michael Ranchman award for dedication, service and academic excellence, St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital Center, NY; 1993, The Chief Residents' Medical Award for excellence in clinical medicine, St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital Center, NY.

Clinical Interests: My clinical interest involves occupational lung diseases such as occupational asthma, chronic beryllium lung disease, chronic hypersensitivity pneumonitis, and pneumoconiosis. I also perform NIOSH B reads for radiologic rating of pneumoconiosis and evaluation of lung impairment using the sixth edition of the AMA Guide. I run a specialty occupational lung disease clinic at the University of New Mexico (272-6110).

Research Interests: My research addresses the role of obesity and adipokines (proteins produced by adipose tissue) in human asthma. We have found that obesity is associated with increased prevalence of airway hyper-reactivity in women. Further, obesity affects the degree of airway reactivity among non-asthmatic women more than it does among asthmatic women, suggesting that obesity predisposes non-asthmatic women towards an asthma phenotype. We have also shown that serum leptin is cross-sectional associated with increased risk for asthma in women, particularly premenopausal women. Similarly, serum adiponectin is cross-sectionally associated with reduced risk for asthma in women, particularly pre-menopausal women. Our recent interventional study suggests that specific allergen inhalation in subjects with asthma does not affect serum adipokines, suggesting that adipokines likely affect asthma and not the other way round. Additional research involves host susceptibility factors in COPD and reactive telephone help lines for smoking cessation.