Welcome to faculty researchers Drs. Philip Spinella and Susan Shea, who joined our department this fall.
Philip C. Spinella, MD, FCCM, earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology at Tufts University, and his Medical Degree at New York Medical College. Following residency in pediatrics at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, he completed a fellowship in pediatric critical care at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and served as the Assistant Chief of Pediatric Critical Care at Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio. Dr. Spinella served 15 years in the US Army and separated as a Lieutenant Colonel in 2007. He is a well-established clinical trialist in the field of transfusion medicine and hemorrhagic shock. His laboratory examines the biologic effects of blood product manufacturing methods with the goal of improving the quality of blood products. Dr. Spinella has been funded by the US Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health with approximately 50 million dollars over the past 10 years. He has published over 245 manuscripts, 21 book chapters, and is the editor of a textbook on the topic of damage control resuscitation. He has completed several randomized controlled trials examining the effect of red blood cell storage age in children and the effect of tranexamic acid on immune function and outcomes in adult trauma patients with severe injury. Presently, he is leading a multicenter randomized controlled trial to investigate the effect of platelet storage temperature on bleeding and clinical outcomes in patients requiring cardiac surgery.
Susan M. Shea, PhD, is a bioengineer who comes to Pitt from Washington University in St. Louis where she spent the past 3.5 years as a trainee, after completing her PhD and postdoctoral fellowship at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on using microfluidic models and other engineering-based approaches to study trauma-associated coagulopathy and the efficacy of resuscitation with blood products and other treatments. She looks forward to continuing these lines of investigation in our department, including studies on cold platelets, novel hemostatic adjuncts, and trauma-induced platelet dysfunction.