Matthew Spite, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury,
Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine,
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA

Primary Research:
His research focuses on the role of lipid mediators in the regulation of inflammation.  He has contributed to the structural elucidation of lipid mediators that promote the resolution of acute inflammation (i.e., resolvins and maresins) and maintains an active research program that seeks to understand the role of these “pro-resolving mediators” in innate immunity, vascular biology and tissue repair.  His group is also interested in understanding whether defects in pro-resolution pathways contribute to chronic inflammation in cardiovascular and metabolic disease, and whether pro-resolving mediators could be used as templates to develop novel therapeutics for chronic inflammatory diseases.

Recent Publications:

1. Zhang MJ, Sansbury BE, Hellmann J, Baker JF, Guo L, Parmer CM, Prenner JC, Conklin DJ, Bhatnagar A, Creager MA, Spite M. Resolvin D2 enhances post-ischemic revascularization while resolving inflammation. (2016) Circulation 134:666-80

2. Fredman G, Hellmann J, Proto J, Kuriakose G, Colas R, Dorweiler B, Connolly E, Solomon R, Heyer E, Jones D, Spite M*, Tabas I. An imbalance between specialized pro-resolving lipid mediators and pro-inflammatory leukotrienes promotes instability of atherosclerotic plaques. (2016) Nat. Comm. 7:12859 *Co-corresponding author

3. Sansbury BE, Spite M. Resolution of acute inflammation and the role of resolvins in immunity, thrombosis and vascular biology. (2016) Circ. Res. 119:113-30

4. Cai B, Thorp EB, Doran AC, Subramanian M, Sansbury BE, Lin CS, Spite M, Fredman G, Tabas I. MerTK cleavage limits pro-resolving mediator biosynthesis and exacerbates tissue inflammation. (2016) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 113:6526-31.

5. Lance KD, Chatterjee A, Wu B, Mottola G, Nuhn H, Peng Lee P, Sansbury BE, Spite M, Desai TA, Conte MS. Unidirectional and sustained delivery of the pro-resolving lipid mediator resolvin D1 from a biodegradable thin film device. (2016) J. Biomed. Mater. Res. A. (In press: doi: 10.1002/jbm.a.35861

Lab URL:
https://connects.catalyst.harvard.edu/Profiles/display/Person/73539

Lab Members:
Brian E. Sansbury, Ph.D. (Postdoctoral Fellow)
Jason Hellmann, Ph.D. (Postdoctoral Fellow-currently Assistant Professor/U. of Louisville)
Michael J. Zhang, M.D.,Ph.D. (Graduate Student-currently Internal Medicine Resident/U. of Minnesota)
Blenda Wong (Research Technician/Lab manager)
Evan Lunt (Research Technician)