Kenneth R. McCurry, MD
Pulmonary and Cardiac Transplantation
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine         
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Presentation Title
Effects of Nitrite on Lung Transplantation

Kenneth R. McCurry, M.D., is assistant professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, division of thoracic and foregut surgery, and director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s (UPMC) Lung and Heart-Lung Transplantation Program, one of the oldest and most active programs in the United States. More than 670 lung and heart-lung transplants have been performed at UPMC since 1982, when the first heart-lung transplant was performed at the university.

Dr McCurry came to the University of Pittsburgh in 1997 as a transplant fellow in the division of cardiothoracic surgery and was soon appointed to the faculty. He was named director of the lung and heart-lung transplant program in 2000. In addition to his clinical responsibilities, Dr McCurry’s research interests include transplant tolerance induction, methods of immunosuppression, chronic rejection and cold storage preservation of the lung. He is active in many research studies, including in collaboration with investigators at the University of Pittsburgh’s Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, and is a regular contributor at scientific congresses and to the scientific literature. He has authored or co-authored more than a 100 articles, abstracts and book chapters.

Among the societies in which he is an active member are The Transplantation Society, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, the American Society of Transplantation, the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation, the American Medical Association, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the American College of Chest Physicians. Dr McCurry received his medical degree from the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1987 and completed his general surgery residency and a fellowship in critical care, research and ECMO at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Between 1993 and 1995, Dr McCurry interrupted clinical training to conduct research on human complement regulatory proteins in xenotransplantation at Duke University. The research fellowship was funded through a National Institutes of Health National Research Service Award. He then returned to the University of Michigan to pursue a two-year residency in thoracic surgery before coming to the University of Pittsburgh in 1997.