Steven D. Shapiro, M.D., associate professor of medicine and of cell biology and physiology, has become director of the Division of Pediatric Allergy and Pulmonary Medicine.
The appointment was announced by Alan L. Schwartz, M.D., Ph.D., the Harriet B. Spoehrer Professor and head of pediatrics at the School of Medicine and pediatrician-in-chief at St. Louis Children's Hospital.
"Steve is an outstanding clinician, teacher and investigator who brings enthusiasm and vision to our allergy and pulmonary medicine division," Schwartz said. "We are very fortunate indeed to be able to recruit such a talented individual to lead our division into the 21st century."
Shapiro, also medical director of the respiratory therapy department at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, has done extensive research with genetically modified mice to examine the lungs' response during development and during injury and inflammation. He and his colleagues recently found an enzyme crucial to the onset of emphysema, and, partly based on this research, pharmaceutical companies are developing drugs that may prevent emphysema.
A member of Alpha Omega Alpha, the national honorary medical society, Shapiro won the American Lung Association's Edward Livingston Trudeau Scholar Award each year from 1990 to 1993. From the same association, he received a Career Investigator Award each year from 1994 to 1997.
He serves as deputy editor of the Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology and is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation.
Shapiro received a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1978 and a medical degree from the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago in 1983. After completing internal medicine training at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and fellowship training in the respiratory and critical care division, he served as chief resident and assistant program director in the Department of Internal Medicine. He joined the Washington University faculty in 1990 as an instructor of internal medicine.
