Laura Koth, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine

Mission Bay Campus
University of California, San Francisco
Email: lkoth@medsfgh.ucsf.edu

Additional websites:
http://pulmonary.ucsf.edu/activities/ild.html

Laura Koth received a B.S. degree from UCLA in Biochemistry and an M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School in 1994. She completed her Internal Residency training at Massachusetts General Hospital and her Pulmonary/Critical Care fellowship at UCSF. She joined the UCSF Lung Biology Center faculty in 2003. Her research activities focus on the mechanisms of lung inflammation and macrophage activation. Her clinical interest centers on interstitial lung diseases and she co-directs the Interstitial Lung Disease Clinic at UCSF.

Research Interests

My research areas include both basic and translational research focusing on the immunobiology of interstitial lung diseases and smoking related lung diseases.

1. The Role of Natural Killer T (NKT) cells in Sarcoidosis: NKT cells are immunoregulatory T cells that have been found to be decreased in sarcoidosis. In collaboration with Drs. Douglas Nixon and Jennifer Snyder-Cappione, we are working to understand the effector function of NKT cells in subjects with sarcoidosis.

2. The Role of Macrophage Activation in Emphysema: Using data generated from alveolar macrophages from human chronic smokers, we recently identified that an adaptor protein previously characterized in natural killer cells and macrophages is activated by cigarette smoke. We are currently conducting in vitro and in vivo studies in mice to understand the role of this pathway in cigarette smoke-induced macrophage activation.

Publications

J.H. Lee, N. Kaminski, G. Dolganov, G. Grunig, L. Koth, C. Solomon, D.J. Erle, D. Sheppard.  Interleukin-13 induces dramatically different transcriptional programs in three human airway cell types. Am J Respir Cell Mol Biol, 2001 Oct; 25(4):474-85.

D.A. Kuperman, X.Z. Huang, L. Koth, Z. Zhu, J.A. Elias, D. Sheppard, D.J. Erle. Direct effects of interleukin-13 on epithelial cells cause airway hyperreactivity and mucus overproduction, two central features of asthma. Nat Med, 2002 Aug; 8(8): 885-9.

M.B. Gotway, J.A. Golden, M. Warnock, L.L. Koth, R. Webb, G.P.Reddy, J.R. Balmes. Hard metal interstitial lung disease: high-resolution computed tomography appearance. J Thorac Imaging. 2002 Oct;17(4):314-8.

Barczak, M.W. Rodriquez, K. Hanspers, L.L. Koth, Y.C. Tai, B.M. Bolstad, T.P. Speed, D.J. Erle. Spotted long oligonucleotide arrays for human gene expression analysis. Genome Res. 2003 Jul;13(7):1775-85.

L.L. Koth, M.W. Rodriguez, X.L. Berstein, S. Chan, X. Huang, I.F. Charo, B.J. Rollins, D.J. Erle.  Aspergillus antigen induces robust Th2 cytokine production, inflammation, airway hyperreactivity and fibrosis in the absence of MCP-1 or CCR2. Respir Res, 2004 Sep; 15;5(1):12.

L. Koth, D. Sheppard. Integrins and pulmonary fibrosis. In: Lung Biology in Health and Disease, ed. Lenfant C: Volume 158: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, ed Lynch JP. New York: Marcel Dekker, 2004.

Marras TK, Wallace RJ Jr, Koth LL, Stulbarg MS, Cowl CT, Daley CL. Hypersensitivity pneumonitis reaction to Mycobacterium avium in household water. Chest. 2005 Feb;127(2):664-71.

L. L. Koth, P.G. Woodruff, Y.H. Yang, M.W. Rodriguez, S. Favoreto, G.M. Dolganov, A.C. Paquet, D.J. Erle. A distinctive alveolar macrophage activation state induced by cigarette smoking. Am J Res Crit Car Med, 2005 Dec 1;172(11):1383-92. Epub 2005 Sep 15.

J. Alexander and L. Koth. Smoking-related interstitial lung diseases. Pulmonary and Critical Care Update Online (PCCU) [serial online]. 2005; vol 19, lesson 20. Available at: www.chestnet.org/education/online/pccu/vol18/lessons09_10/lesson10.php

L. Koth, King TE Jr., Heldmann M., Berney S.N., Berney S.M. Pulmonary vasculitis In: Bone’s Atlas of Pulmonary. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Co., 2005; pp: 201-210.

BW Kinder, HR Collard, L Koth, DI Daikh, PJ Wolters, B Elicker, KD Jones, TE King Jr. Idiopathic NSIP: Lung Manifestation of Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease? Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2007 Jun 7; [Epub ahead of print].

LL Koth, BT Alex, S Hawgood, MA Nead, D Sheppard, DJ Erle, DG Morris. Integrin {beta}6 Mediates Phospholipid and Collectin Homeostasis by Activation of Latent TGF{beta}1. Am J Respir Cell Mol Biol. 2007 Jul 19; [Epub ahead of print].