George T. O’Connor MD
Professor, Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep & Critical Care Medicine
Member, Genome Science Institute
72 E. Concord Street | (617) 638-4470george.oconnor@bmc.org
goconnor@bu.edu
Sections
Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep & Critical Care Medicine
Centers
Pulmonary Center
Framingham Heart Study
Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research
Biography
My research focuses on epidemiology, including genetic epidemiology, and clinical investigations of asthma, allergy, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and sleep apnea. I am currently a multiple PI and Co-director of the NHLBI's Framingham Heart Study, and I am a co-investigator in the Risk Underlying Rural Areas Longitudinal (RURAL) Cohort Study. I am the Boston University-Boston Medical Center principal investigator of multiple NIH-funded multi-center investigations, including the All of Us Research Program, the Childhood Asthma in Urban Settings (CAUSE) consortium, and the Vitamin D Antenatal Asthma Reduction Trial (VDAART). I have led the BU-BMC site of clinical trials in children and adolescents with asthma and the Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma (URECA) birth-cohort study examining the risk factors for asthma and allergy in urban settings. l conduct epidemiologic and genetic epidemiologic research at the Framingham Heart Study, including genome-wide association studies seeking novel genetic determinants of lung function impairment, interstitial lung abnormalities, and atopy. My research spans disciplines including adult medicine, pediatrics, epidemiology, genetics and genomics, immunology, and environmental science. At Boston Medical Center, my outpatient practice focuses on adults with asthma, COPD, and bronchiectasis. I am an Associate Editor of JAMA.
Websites
Boston Medical Center Provider Profile
Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep & Critical Care Medicine Faculty
Education
MD, Boston University School of Medicine
MS, Harvard School of Public Health
BA, Boston University
Publications
Zhang J, Hobbs BD, Silverman EK, Sparrow D, Ortega VE, Xu H, Zhang C, Dupuis J, Walkey AJ, O'Connor GT, Cho MH, Moll M. Polygenic Risk Score Added to Conventional Case Finding to Identify Undiagnosed Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. JAMA. 2025 Mar 04; 333(9):784-792. PMID: 39841442.
Published on 3/1/2025Bhatt SP, Wu C, Sun Y, Balte PP, Schwartz JE, Divo MJ, Jaeger BC, Chaves PH, Couper D, Jacobs DR, Lloyd-Jones D, Kalhan R, Newman AB, O'Connor GT, Umans JG, White WB, Yende S, Oelsner EC. Low Lung Function Is Associated with High Population Attributable Fraction for Cardiovascular Mortality. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2025 Mar; 22(3):359-366. PMID: 39447115.
Published on 2/10/2025Oelsner EC, Krishnaswamy A, Rustamov R, Balte PP, Ali T, Allen NB, Andrews HF, Anugu P, Arynchyn A, Bateman LA, Cai J, Chang H, Chen L, Elkind MSV, Floyd JS, Gabriel KP, Gharib SA, Gutierrez JD, Stukovsky KH, Howard VJ, Isasi CR, Jager L, Jin L, Judd SE, Kanaya AM, Kandula NR, Kelly MR, Khan SS, Kucharska-Newton A, Lee JS, Levitan EB, Lewis CE, Make BJ, Malloy K, Manly JJ, Mauger D, Min YI, Murabito JM, Murphy CG, Norwood AF, O'Connor GT, Ortega VE, Patel AA, Pirzada A, Regan EA, Ring KB, Rosamond WD, Schwartz DA, Shikany JM, Sotres-Alvarez D, Tarlton C, Tse J, Meneses EMU, Vankineni M, Wenzel SE, Woodruff PG, Xanthakis V, Yang JH, Zakai NA, Zhang Y, Post WS. Classifying COVID-19 hospitalizations in epidemiology cohort studies: The C4R study. PLoS One. 2025; 20(2):e0316198. PMID: 39928595.
Published on 1/7/2025Gaberino CL, Altman MC, Gill MA, Bacharier LB, Gruchalla RS, O'Connor GT, Kumar R, Khurana Hershey GK, Kattan M, Liu AH, Teach SJ, Zoratti EM, Becker PM, Togias A, Visness C, Gern JE, Busse WW, Jackson DJ. Dysregulation of airway and systemic interferon responses promotes asthma exacerbations in urban children. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2025 Jan 07. PMID: 39788435.
Published on 1/2/2025Togias A, Gergen PJ, Liu AH, Kim H, Wood RA, O'Connor GT, Makhija M, Khurana Hershey GK, Kercsmar CM, Gruchalla RS, Lamm C, Bacharier LB, Patel SJ, Gern JE, Jackson DJ, Visness CM, Calatroni A, Busse WW. Rhinoconjunctivitis symptoms in children and adolescents with asthma: Longitudinal clustering analysis. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2025 Jan 02. PMID: 39755282.
Published on 12/6/2024Liu C, Joehanes R, Ma J, Xie J, Yang J, Wang M, Huan T, Hwang SJ, Wen J, Sun Q, Cumhur DY, Heard-Costa NL, Orchard P, Carson AP, Raffield LM, Reiner A, Li Y, O'Connor G, Murabito JM, Munson P, Levy D. Integrating Whole Genome and Transcriptome Sequencing to Characterize the Genetic Architecture of Isoform Variation and its Implications for Health and Disease. medRxiv. 2024 Dec 06. PMID: 39677465.
Published on 11/27/2024Patchen BK, Zhang J, Gaddis N, Bartz TM, Chen J, Debban C, Leonard H, Nguyen NQ, Seo J, Tern C, Allen R, DeMeo DL, Fornage M, Melbourne C, Minto M, Moll M, O'Connor G, Pottinger T, Psaty BM, Rich SS, Rotter JI, Silverman EK, Stratford J, Graham Barr R, Cho MH, Gharib SA, Manichaikul A, North K, Oelsner EC, Simonsick EM, Tobin MD, Yu B, Choi SH, Dupuis J, Cassano PA, Hancock DB. Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study reveals novel genetic signals for lung function decline. medRxiv. 2024 Nov 27. PMID: 39649580.
Published on 11/27/2024Brunwasser SM, Gebretsadik T, Satish A, Cole JC, Dupont WD, Joseph C, Bendixsen CG, Calatroni A, Arbes SJ, Fulkerson PC, Sanders J, Bacharier LB, Camargo CA, Johnson CC, Furuta GT, Gruchalla RS, Gupta RS, Khurana Hershey GK, Jackson DJ, Kattan M, Liu A, O'Connor GT, Rivera-Spoljaric K, Phipatanakul W, Rothenberg ME, Seibold MA, Seroogy CM, Teach SJ, Zoratti EM, Togias A, Hartert TV. Caregiver worry about COVID-19 as a predictor of social mitigation behaviours and SARS-CoV-2 infection in a 12-city U.S. surveillance study of households with children. Prev Med Rep. 2025 Jan; 49:102936. PMID: 39697187.
Published on 11/22/2024Aggarwal M, Hwang SJ, Lee DH, Huan T, McNeill JN, Courchesne P, Joehanes R, Ho JE, Dupuis J, Hedman ÅK, O'Connor G, Levy D. Plasma Protein Biomarkers of Spirometry Measures of Impaired Lung Function. Chest. 2024 Nov 22. PMID: 39580111.
Published on 10/7/2024Fulkerson PC, Lussier SJ, Bendixsen CG, Castina SM, Gebretsadik T, Marlin JS, Russell PB, Seibold MA, Everman JL, Moore CM, Snyder BM, Thompson K, Tregoning GS, Wellford S, Arbes SJ, Bacharier LB, Calatroni A, Camargo CA, Dupont WD, Furuta GT, Gruchalla RS, Gupta RS, Hershey GK, Jackson DJ, Johnson CC, Kattan M, Liu AH, Murrison L, O'Connor GT, Phipatanakul W, Rivera-Spoljaric K, Rothenberg ME, Seroogy CM, Teach SJ, Zoratti EM, Togias A, Hartert TV, Heros Study Team OBOT. Human Epidemiology and Response to SARS-CoV-2 (HEROS): objectives, design, and enrollment results of a 12-city remote observational surveillance study of households with children, using direct-to-participant methods. Am J Epidemiol. 2024 Oct 07; 193(10):1329-1338. PMID: 38775275.
Media Mentions
Published on 4/8/2024
Massachusetts-based Framingham Heart Study celebrates 75 years of research
Published on 9/28/2023
How one health study, inspired by FDR's death, changed life in America forever
Published on 9/28/2023
Olive Oil: The Key to Better Health According to Harvard Research
Published on 9/27/2023
Framingham Heart Study celebrates 75th anniversary
Published on 5/22/2023
Mucus Plugs in Airways of COPD Patients Linked to Higher Mortality
Published on 5/11/2022
COPD Screening for Asymptomatic Adults? USPSTF Weighs In, Again
Published on 5/10/2022
USPSTF finalizes recommendation against COPD screening in asymptomatic adults
Published on 12/7/2020
New asthma guidelines advise single maintenance and reliever therapy
Published on 12/3/2020
NHLBI Updates Asthma Tx Guidelines
Published on 2/21/2019
E-Cigarettes More Effective Than Nicotine-Replacement Therapy For Smoking-Cessation
View full list of 14 media mentions.