George Alba

Dr. Alba studied English Literature and Biology as an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis, earned his MD at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and then completed both Internal Medicine and Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine training at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). As an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Pulmonary and Critical Care Physician at MGH, Dr. Alba is actively engaged in clinical care, research, and teaching. Dr. Alba’s clinical interests include general pulmonary and critical care, pulmonary vascular diseases, dyspnea and exercise intolerance, and long-term recovery from COVID-19. Dr. Alba’s research focuses on mechanisms of pulmonary vascular disease, specifically how hypoxic endothelial dysfunction regulates platelet-endothelial cell interactions, and the relevance to long-term outcomes from hypoxemic respiratory failure, including COVID-19. As Associate Director of the Coronavirus Recovery (CORE) clinic, Dr. Alba is helping to care for and study the acute and chronic consequences of COVID-19. As an educator, Dr. Alba enjoys teaching and training medical students, residents, and fellows in the Medical Intensive Care Unit, teaches pulmonary physiology at Harvard Medical School, and is the recipient of accomplished teaching citations and a patient safety star related to efforts in quality improvement.

Research

Dr. Alba conducts basic and translational research in pulmonary vascular disease with the goal of identifying novel therapeutic targets and treatment modalities. The current work is focused on how local hypoxia results in endothelial dysfunction to affect platelet-endothelial cell interactions in the pulmonary circulation in a host of pulmonary disorders, ranging from chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension to acute respiratory distress syndrome, including COVID-19. He is a recipient of the MGH Center for Diversity and Inclusion Physician-Scientist Development Award and the Harvard KL2/Catalyst Medical Research Investigator Training Award.

Medical Education

• MD, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
• Residency, Massachusetts General Hospital
• Fellowship, Massachusetts General Hospital

American Board Certifications

• Critical Care Medicine, American Board of Internal Medicine
• Internal Medicine, American Board of Internal Medicine
• Pulmonary Disease, American Board of Internal Medicine

Publications

• Sacks CA, Kamalian S, Masiakos PT, Alba GA, Patalas ED. Case 31-2018: A 37-Year-Old Man with a Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound. New England Journal of Medicine. 2018 Oct 11;379(15):1464-1472.
• Samokhin AO, Stephens T, Wertheim BM, Wang RS, Vargas SO, Yung LM, Cao M, Brown M, Arons E, Dieffenbach PB, Fewell JG, Matar M, Bowman FP, Haley KJ, Alba GA, Marino SM, Kumar R, Rosas IO, Waxman AB, Oldham WM, Khanna D, Graham BB, Seo S, Gladyshev VN, Yu PB, Fredenburgh LE, Loscalzo J, Leopold JA, Maron BA. NEDD9 targets COL3A1 to promote endothelial fibrosis and pulmonary arterial hypertension. Sci Transl Med. 2018 Jun 13;10(445).
• Oldham WM, Oliveira RKF, Wang RS, Opotowsky AR, Rubins DM, Hainer J, Wertheim BM, Alba GA, Choudhary G, Tornyos A, MacRae CA, Loscalzo J, Leopold JA, Waxman AB, Olschewski H, Kovacs G, Systrom DM, Maron BA. Network Analysis to Risk Stratify Patients With Exercise Intolerance. Circulation Research. 2018; 122(6):864-876.
• Sacks CA, Alba GA, Miloslavsky EM. The Evolution of Procedural Competency in Internal Medicine Training. JAMA Internal Medicine. 2017; 177(12):1713-1714.
• Alba GA, Truong QA, Gaggin HK, Gandhi PU, De Berardinis B, Magrini L, Bajwa EK, Di Somma S, Januzzi JL Jr. Diagnostic and Prognostic Utility of Procalcitonin in Patients Presenting to the Emergency Department with Dyspnea. The American Journal of Medicine. 2016; 129(1):96-104.e7.
• Alba GA, Kelmenson DA, Noble VE, Murray AF, Currier PF. Faculty staff-guided versus self-guided ultrasound training for internal medicine residents. Medical Education. 2013; 47(11):1099-108.