The microbiome’s role in lung disease and critical illness
We are a research group at the University of Michigan, affiliated with the Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine (Department of Medicine), the Department of Microbiology & Immunology, and the Weil Institute for Critical Care Research & Innovation. Our members represent the fields of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, Infectious Diseases, and Bioinformatics.
We study how microbial communities in the respiratory tract and gut contribute to illness and health, with a clinical focus on lung disease and critical illness. We are a translational laboratory, with tools spanning from molecular characterization of respiratory microbiota to ex vivo and animal models of lung injury and sepsis to prospective trials of human subjects.
Our long-term goal is to treat the microbiome as a therapeutic target for the prevention and treatment of lung disease and critical illness.
Robert Dickson MD
Dr. Dickson is the Galen B. Toews Legacy Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine and Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Michigan. Clinically, he attends in the Critical Care Medicine Unit and serves as the program physician for the Washtenaw County Tuberculosis Clinic.
In the lab, Dr. Dickson complements his clinical and research background in the pathophysiology of lung disease and critical illness with the culture-independent techniques of microbial ecology. Diseases of interest include the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), sepsis, pneumonia, pulmonary fibrosis, and lung transplant rejection. His research is supported by the National Institutes for Health, the European Commission, and institutional support.
Dr. Dickson serves as Associate Chief (Research) for the Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine and as Deputy Director of the Weil Institute for Critical Care Research & Innovation. He is the Program Director of the University of Michigan’s Multidisciplinary Training Program in Lung Disease (T32HL007749), and Associate Program Director (Research) for the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Program. Dr. Dickson is a Senior Editor at Microbiome, a Specialist Editor of the European Respiratory Journal, and a member of the Editorial Boards of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and Lancet Respiratory Medicine.
Contact Information
Dickson Laboratory, University of Michigan
6220 MSRB III / SPC 5642
1150 W. Medical Center Dr.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-5642
(734)936-1050 (administrator)