Veterans Health Foundation

William Bain, MD


Dr. Bain obtained his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and completed his internal medicine residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and pulmonary-critical care subspecialty fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Bain’s research focuses on how the lung responds to infection and injury during severe pneumonia. Dr. Bain’s research includes an emphasis on the role of platelets, a circulating blood cell that participates in coagulation, in releasing factors that protect the lining of the lung (epithelium) and promote repair after injury caused by pneumonia. Dr. Bain’s current research is primarily pre-clinical utilizing bench and small animal models, but the research may provide rational candidates for future medical therapeutics during pneumonia and the acute respiratory distress syndrome.

What are the 3 most important questions that define your research program?

  • How do platelets and platelet factors attenuate lung injury during pathogen-mediated lung injury?
  • What is the role of platelet released factors in providing protection to alveolar epithelium?
  • What are mechanisms by which alternative complement pathway function supports host defense and patient survival during critical illness with acute respiratory failure?

What are up to 5 technologies, models, methods, analytical approaches or other forms of expertise that characterize your research program?

  • Small animal models
  • Cre-recombinase specialty genetic mouse lines
  • Rosa reporter mouse lines
  • Cell death pathways
  • Omics data including genomics and proteomics