Andrew Wilson, MD, Appointed Alpha-1 Foundation Scientific Director

Associate Professor of Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep & Critical Care Medicine Andrew A. Wilson, MD, has been appointed Scientific Director of the Alpha-1 Foundation.

A pulmonary and critical care clinician-scientist with a focus on regenerative medicine and stem cell biology, Wilson’s goal is to advance understanding of and treatment for genetic causes of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and the most common genetic cause of COPD, Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (AATD).

An active member of the Alpha-1 community since 2006, Wilson serves as the head of the Alpha-1 Clinical Resource Center at the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and is a member of the Alpha-1 Foundation’s Grant Advisory Committee (GAC) and the Research Registry Working Group. He also is site Principal Investigator of the Alpha-1 Biomarkers Consortium (A1BC) study and of the Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency Adult Clinical and Genetic Linkage Study at BU.

“I am honored and humbled to have been selected as the new Scientific Director of the Alpha-1 Foundation,” Wilson said. “Many researchers who are currently working on Alpha-1 research, myself included, probably wouldn’t be doing so if it were not for the support they have received from the Alpha-1 Foundation over the years. In the same vein, having an organized patient community is key since translational research relies upon access to patients with the disease. Researchers must be able to find patients. We are fortunate that Alphas are so enthusiastic and generous in their participation in research. I hope that as Scientific Director I will be able to help the Foundation advance its mission and work toward a cure for AATD.”

Wilson has worked to create an integrated clinical and research program at BU that includes: the Alpha-1 clinic, which has grown into one of the larger Alpha-1 clinics in the country, largely on the basis of referrals and patients who come from throughout the region; a biosample and clinical data repository that consists of reprogrammable blood samples banked at the CReM from each of his patients to allow generation of iPSCs from samples of interest connected to relevant clinical data; bench/translational research using iPSCs generated from this repository to investigate disease mechanisms; and clinical research funded by a combination of the Alpha-1 Foundation and the NIH.

Wilson and members of the CReM and the Pulmonary Center have been actively involved in the Alpha-1 community, participating as a team in the annual Escape to the Cape bike trek on Cape Cod for the past eight years and hosting Alpha-1 support groups from Massachusetts to Maine for visits to CReM many times over the years. These visits have helped inform the Clinical Resource Center about what is important to the patient community and have allowed patients to hear about ongoing research. In some cases, patients have even been able to see their own cells growing in the lab.

The Alpha-1 community honored Wilson in 2014 with the Shillelagh award at the annual Celtic Connection fundraising event to honor his outstanding commitment to Alpha-1 research.