Timothy R. Watkins Laboratory

The Watkins laboratory is using a bedside-to-bench approach to examine clinical and biologic exposure characteristics of blood component therapy potentially linked to the development of life-threatening complications of critical illness.

Dr. Watkins is also active in a multicenter clinical trial funded by the National Institutes of Health designed to determine whether the use of aspirin prevents the development of acute lung injury in at-risk patients.

Areas of Study

Trauma and Acute Lung Injury: The Role of Red Blood Cell Storage and Transfusion
Red blood cell transfusions are lifesaving elements of care for those who have experienced severe trauma. Paradoxically, transfusions are also linked to several adverse outcomes in critically ill and injured patients including the development of acute lung injury. This project is a prospective cohort study that is examining the association between blood component storage and the development of acute lung injury in trauma patients requiring a red blood cell transfusion. Dr. Watkins' lab is capturing real-time samples of all blood components transfused to enrolled subjects, allowing the researchers to examine the association between transfused microparticles and lung injury development. Finally, Dr. Watkins' lab is collecting blood samples from a subset of trauma patients at high-risk for lung injury in order to examine whether circulating microparticles are modified by transfusion and/or are associated with lung injury.