Dr. Washko’s overall research goal is to develop the tools necessary to use pulmonary imaging as a tool for the selection of more homogeneous subsets of subjects with COPD for therapeutic intervention and as an intermediate study endpoint for clinical investigation.  There is a tremendous amount of heterogeneity in the clinical manifestations of smoking related lung disease and this has made clinical investigation of COPD a challenge where even the most promising trials have found beneficial impact in only a subset of the study cohort.  Quantitative and qualitative image analysis can improve our understanding of disease pathophysiology, reduce some of the heterogeneity observed in COPD, and potentially allow the selection of subjects who are most and least likely to benefit from intervention.  Dr. Washko’s background includes didactic training in both engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and clinical research over a decade later at Harvard Medical School.  In that interval he completed Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship training where he was mentored in clinical research.  He has since become the Associate Director of the Framingham Heart Study Pulmonary Research Center as well as the PI of the sub-contract to perform objective CT measures of disease.  Dr. Washko is also the regional PI of the COPD Clinical Research Network and has secured additional funding through the K23 mechanism and the Parker B. Francis Foundation, the later two of which are focused on the development and validation of image based biomarkers of lung disease