Charles Serhan Pensacola Evening lecture

A well-regulated inflammatory response is the body’s best defense — and key to its ability to recover and maintain healthy resiience. Few people understand the role inflammation and inflammatory response play in human health better than Dr. Chalres Serhan. Serhan is a Harvard professor best known for his discovery of specialized pro-resolving mediators (SPMs), molecules that can activate the natural resolution of inflammation and help people avoid immunosuppression from anti-inflammatory drugs. The discovery of these pro-resolving mediators opened new directions for understanding disease, health, and potentially new treatments. SPMs are biosynthesized from essential fatty acids that are linked to pain control, clearing infections, and regeneration. In this lecture, Serhan will give a high-level overview of this work and share how the discovery of SPMs spurred a fundamental shift in the way we understand inflammation and human disease. He will also share what subsequent research indicates may lie ahead for SPMs and the future of Resolution Pharmacology and Resolution Medicine.

Dr. Charles Serhan Ph.D. is the Simon Gelman Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical Schooland is the director of the Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He also is a past co-director of the Brigham Research Institute. He earned his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Stony Brook University, and his Ph.D. in experimental pathology and medical sciences from New York University School of Medicine. He completed post-doctoral work at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and earned an honorary fellow in medical sciences from Queen Mary College at the University of London. He also earned an honorary Doctor of Science degree from University College Dublin. He uncovered with his team the first specialized pro-resolving mediators (SPMs) and highlighted their biological importance. Since then, Serhan has pioneered a new field on the utility of SPMs for a variety of inflammatory diseases. From his research, inflammation is now widely appreciated as an active process that when “faulty” contributes to disease progression and organ failure.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition