Kenneth Adler

Biography

Kenneth Adler has spent more than three decades investigating respiratory airways and the problem of excess mucus production—a condition that ranges from annoying in a cold to deadly in cystic fibrosis. In the process, Dr. Adler has become one of the world’s foremost researchers in the field of airway disease and a top-ranked biomedical scientist whose achievements have the potential to significantly improve the lives of people with severe respiratory diseases such as chronic bronchitis, asthma, and cystic fibrosis. Dr. Adler is a recipient of a prestigious MERIT Award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The MERIT (Method to Extend Research in Time) Award supports researchers “who have demonstrated superior competence and outstanding productivity in research endeavors” by providing 10 years of grant support worth approximately $400,000 a year. Less than one percent of NIH-funded investigators are selected to receive MERIT awards. Among numerous other honors, Dr. Adler is the 2004 recipient of the O. Max Gardner Award, the highest faculty award presented by the University of North Carolina Board of Governors. The annual award is presented to a faculty member recognized as having “made the greatest contribution to the welfare of the human race.” He has published more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals and is sought internationally as a speaker, and his focus on training both Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows has added dozens of well-trained scientists to the field.

Research Interest

BIOLOGICAL BARRIERS: Research in this laboratory is directed toward elucidating pathogenic mechanisms associated with inflammation in the respiratory airways as seen in asthma, cystic fibrosis and chronic bronchitis. Specific areas of airway pathophysiology include signal transduction pathways that regulate production and secretion of respiratory mucus at the gene and protein levels. The work is done utilizing primary cultures of differentiated human tracheobronchial cells maintained in a unique air-liquid interface, a procedure developed in this laboratory that maintains these cells so they are essentially identical in structure and function to these cells in the body. This research is funded by NIH and several pharmaceutical firms.