Clinical Interests

Structural morphology of the lung; tissue responses to acute and chronic lung injury; morphogenesis of the lung and the origin of pulmonary malformations; use of transgenic mouse models to study mechanisms of lung development, cytodifferentiation, injury and repair in the lung; development of molecular markers for the study of respiratory epithelial cell differentiation and for cell lineage studies; image analysis and morphometry

Research Interests

Lung development, injury, and repair as it pertains to molecular morphology (gene and protein expression in situ); ultrastructure, and histopathology of the developing and adult lung; the histopathology of the human lung as it relates to interstitial lung disease, especially to genetic disorders of surfactant dysfunction in the neonatal and pediatric population

PhD: Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio 1988.

Postdoctoral Fellowship: Perinatology, Division of Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, 1988-1991.

Sivaprasad U, Askew DJ, Ericksen MB, Gibson AM, Stier MT, Brandt EB, Bass SA, Daines MO, Chakir J, Stringer KF, Wert SE, Whitsett JA, Le Cras TD, Wills-Karp M, Silverman GA, Khurana Hershey GK. A nonredundant role for mouse Serpinb3a in the induction of mucus production in asthma. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2011 Jan;127(1):254-61, 261.e1-6.

Tompkins DH, Besnard V, Lange AW, Keiser AR, Wert SE, Bruno MD, Whitsett JA. Sox2 Activates Cell Proliferation and Differentiation in the Respiratory Epithelium. Am J Respir Cell Mol Biol. 2010 Sep 20. 

Suzuki T, Sakagami T, Young LR, Carey BC, Wood RE, Luisetti M, Wert SE, Rubin BK, Kevill K, Chalk C, Whitsett JA, Stevens C, Nogee LM, Campo I, Trapnell BC. Hereditary pulmonary alveolar proteinosis: pathogenesis, presentation, diagnosis, and therapy. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2010 Nov 15;182(10):1292-304.

Sakagami T, Beck D, Uchida K, Suzuki T, Carey BC, Nakata K, Keller G, Wood RE, Wert SE, Ikegami M, Whitsett JA, Luisetti M, Davies S, Krischer JP, Brody A, Ryckman F, Trapnell BC. Patient-derived granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor autoantibodies reproduce pulmonary alveolar proteinosis in nonhuman primates. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2010 Jul 1;182(1):49-61. 

Besnard V, Matsuzaki Y, Clark JC, Xu Y, Wert SE, Ikegami M, Stahlman MT, Weaver TE, Hunt AN, Postle AD, Whitsett JA. Conditional Deletion of Abca3 in Alveolar Type II Cells Alters Surfactant Homeostasis in Newborn and Adult Mice. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol. 2010 Feb 26.

Whitsett JA, Wert SE, Weaver TE. Alveolar surfactant homeostasis and the pathogenesis of pulmonary disease. Annu Rev Med. 2010;61:105-19. Review.

Tompkins DH, Besnard V, Lange AW, Wert SE, Keiser AR, Smith AN, Lang R, Whitsett JA. Sox2 is required for maintenance and differentiation of bronchiolar Clara, ciliated, and goblet cells. PLoS One. 2009 Dec 14;4(12):e8248.

Ustiyan V, Wang IC, Ren X, Zhang Y, Snyder J, Xu Y, Wert SE, Lessard JL, Kalin TV, Kalinichenko VV. Forkhead box M1 transcriptional factor is required for smooth muscle cells during embryonic development of blood vessels and esophagus. Dev Biol. 2009 Dec 15;336(2):266-79. 

Chen G, Korfhagen TR, Xu Y, Kitzmiller J, Wert SE, Maeda Y, Gregorieff A, Clevers H, Whitsett JA. SPDEF is required for mouse pulmonary goblet cell differentiation and regulates a network of genes associated with mucus production. J Clin Invest. 2009 Oct;119(10):2914-24. doi: 10.1172/JCI39731.

Wert SE, Whitsett JA, Nogee LM. Genetic disorders of surfactant dysfunction. Pediatr Dev Pathol. 2009 Jul-Aug;12(4):253-74.