George A. Alba, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Areas of Expertise: Investigation, Academic Clinical Medicine
Academic Interests
Dr. Alba’s clinical interests include general pulmonary and critical care, pulmonary vascular disease, dyspnea and exercise intolerance, and long-term pulmonary vascular recovery following critical illness. Dr. Alba’s research focuses on mechanisms of pulmonary vascular thrombosis and chronic thromboembolism, pulmonary vascular dysfunction in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and pulmonary vascular recovery following ARDS. Dr. Alba co-directs the MGH Program for Advancing Critical Care Translational Science (PACCTS), a comprehensive biorepository for critical illness syndromes, and he is Associate Director of the Coronavirus Recovery (CORE) clinic where he helps to care for and study the pulmonary complications of COVID-19 and ARDS. He is a sub-investigator for the Boston COVID-19 Recovery Cohort, part of the multi-center NIH RECOVER study, and is collaborating on several projects to evaluate post-infectious endothelial dysfunction and small airways disease. As an educator, Dr. Alba enjoys teaching and training medical students, residents, and fellows in the Medical Intensive Care Unit and teaching pulmonary physiology at Harvard Medical School.
Awards and Recognition
Dr. Alba completed both the Harvard Catalyst Clinical and Translational Research Academy and the Program in Clinical Effectiveness at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His research on mechanisms of pulmonary vascular dysfunction has been supported by a National Research Service Award from the NIH NHLBI, a Harvard Catalyst KL2, the MGH Center for Diversity and Inclusion Physician Scientist Development Award, the MGH Department of Medicine Sanchez and Ferguson Research Faculty Award, and the NIH Loan Repayment Program. Dr. Alba is currently supported by the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program, a career development award administered through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation intended to increase the diversity of academic medicine, and was honored with an ASCI Young Physician-Scientist Award in 2023. He is a member of the American Thoracic Society Pulmonary Circulation Programming Committee and the American Heart Association 3CPR Scientific and Clinical Education Lifelong Learning Committee. Dr. Alba is the recipient of accomplished teaching citations, a patient safety star related to efforts in quality improvement, and a Pillars of Excellence team award for organizational leadership and outstanding performance during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A full list of Dr. Alba’s published work can be found on My Bibliography.
More information can be found on Dr. Alba's Harvard Catalyst Profile.
+Current Projects
- Developing a novel therapeutic to inhibit NEDD9-mediated platelet-endothelial adhesion in the pulmonary circulation
- Pulmonary vascular dysfunction and recovery in ARDS
- Pulmonary complications of COVID-19, including small airways disease, pulmonary vascular dysfunction, and endothelial dysfunction