hrishikesh Kulkarni, MD, MSCI

Hrishikesh S Kulkarni, MD, MSCI

Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care

Languages

English

Education

Fellowships

Critical Care, University of California San Francisco, CA, 2010
Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO, 2016

Degrees

MSCI, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, 2017
MD, Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital, India, 2009

Residency

Internal Medicine, University Health Center of Pittsburgh, PA, 2013

Board Certifications

Critical Care Medicine, American Board of Internal Medicine, 2016
Pulmonary Disease, American Board of Internal Medicine, 2015
Internal Medicine, American Board of Internal Medicine, 2013

Contact Information

Scientific Interests

The overarching goal of Dr. Kulkarni's NIH-funded research program is to ultimately reduce the burden of end-stage lung disease by investigating how locally active innate immune proteins (such as complement proteins) influence the cellular response to injury. A major focus of his work involves distinguishing the role of locally-derived complement proteins in the lung from those present in the blood, and how they modulate behavior of cells in the lung, notably epithelial cells and alveolar macrophages. His lab uses multiple in vitro and in vivo approaches to dissect the mechanism by which these proteins contribute to cellular survival. Investigating the mechanism by which locally-derived and intracellular complement proteins affect cellular survival, proliferation, and effector cellular responses has direct implications on how local complement activation affects outcomes in the settings of different cancers, notably lung cancer.

Highlighted Publications

Liu Z, Liao F, Zhu J, Zhou D, Heo GS, Leuhmann HP, Scozzi D, Parks A, Hachem R, Byers DE, Tague LK, Kulkarni HS, Cano M, Wong BW, Li W, Huang HJ, Krupnick AS, Kreisel D, Liu Y, Gelman AE. Reprogramming alveolar macrophage responses to TGF-β reveals CCR2+ monocyte activity that promotes bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome. J Clin Invest. 2022 Oct 3;132(19):e159229. doi: 10.1172/JCI159229. PMID: 36189800; PMCID: PMC9525120.

Sahu SK, Ozantürk AN, Kulkarni DH, Ma L, Barve RA, Dannull L, Lu A, Starick M, McPhatter J, Garnica L, Sanfillipo-Burchman M, Kunen J, Wu X, Gelman AE, Brody SL, Atkinson JP, Kulkarni HS. Lung epithelial cell-derived C3 protects against pneumonia-induced lung injury. Sci Immunol. 2023 Feb 3;8(80):eabp9547. doi: 10.1126/sciimmunol.abp9547. Epub 2023 Feb 3. PMID: 36735773; PMCID: PMC10023170.

Lehmann M, Krishnan R, Sucre J, Kulkarni HS, Pineda RH, Anderson C, Banovich NE, Behrsing HP, Dean CH, Haak A, Gosens R, Kaminski N, Zagorska A, Koziol-White C, Metcalf JP, Kim YH, Loebel C, Neptune E, Noel A, Raghu G, Sewald K, Sharma A, Suki B, Sperling A, Tatler A, Turner S, Rosas IO, van Ry P, Wille T, Randell SH, Pryhuber G, Rojas M, Bourke J, Königshoff M. Precision Cut Lung Slices: Emerging Tools for Preclinical and Translational Lung Research. An Official American Thoracic Society Workshop Report. Am J Respir Cell Mol Biol. 2024 Nov 5. doi: 10.1165/rcmb.2024-0479ST. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39499861.

Kulkarni DH, Starick M, Aponte Alburquerque R, Kulkarni HS. Local complement activation and modulation in mucosal immunity. Mucosal Immunol. 2024 Aug;17(4):739-751. doi: 10.1016/j.mucimm.2024.05.006. Epub 2024 Jun 4. PMID: 38838816.

Earhart AT, Alburquerque RA, Starick M, Nallapu A, Garnica L, Ozanturk A, Maurya RK, Wu X, Haspel JA, Kulkarni HS. The C3-C3aR axis modulates trained immunity in alveolar macrophages. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.11.01.621042