Owen McCarty

Sepsis remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Select medical devices, such as ECMO, can provide life-saving support; however, their use is plagued by striking rates of thrombosis and bleeding. Likewise, mortality remains poor in the population of critically ill patients requiring ECMO, driven by a proinflammatory and prothrombotic pathologic host response. Our current focus is to evaluate the mechanistic roles of coagulation FXII as a key driver of both device thrombosis and septic thrombinflamation. We will discuss our recent discovery that uncoupling the contact activation pathway of coagulation mitigates device-associated thrombosis in human and animal models. New data will be presented suggesting that FXII plays a pathologic role in systemic inflammation and organ compromise in bacterial and polymicrobial sepsis. The seminar will conclude by outlining a roadmap for pharmacological targeting of FXII to safely reduce or prevent ECMO-associated thromboinflammation. 

A native of Rochester, Dr. McCarty received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from SUNY Buffalo, and a Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, where his research focused on the identification and characterization of tumor cell receptors for blood platelets and leukocytes. He performed his postdoctoral research on platelet cell biology in the Pharmacology Department at the University of Oxford and University of Birmingham, UK in the group of Dr. Steve Watson. Dr. McCarty joined Oregon Health & Science University in 2005, where he holds an appointment as a Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Cell, Developmental & Cancer Biology and the Division of Hematology & Medical Oncology in the OHSU School of Medicine. Dr. McCarty serves as the Chair of the Biomedical Engineering Department and a fellow of the American Heart Association.

• Time: 11:00 AM
• Location: 206 Furnas Hall