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Biographical Information and Research Accomplishments:

Dr. Sadis Matalon was born in Athens, Greece on October 6th, 1948. He received a BA from Macalester College, cum laude with Special Departmental Honors in Physics in 1970. He then enrolled at the University of Minnesota where he earned a Master of Science in Physics in 1973 and a PhD in Physiology in 1975. While at Macalester College he completed an honors project entitled “Deuteron Induced Reactions at 150 KeV” under the direction of Prof. Edward Strait.  At the University of Minnesota he worked with Dr. Arnold Leonard and Dr. Carl Hunt on quantifying abnormalities of gas exchange in premature infants with hyaline membrane disease using mass spectrometry (Hunt CE et al.  Pediatr Res. 1974; 8(6):621-7;  Matalon S et al.  Respir Physiol. 1978;32(1):51-61). He completed his PhD thesis on lung fluid balance under the direction of Dr. O. Douglas Wangensteen (Matalon SV, Wangensteen OD.  Microvasc Res. 1977 Jul;14(1):99-110).  

After spending a year as an Associate at Northwestern University and Children’s Hospital in Chicago, IL., he worrked on control of breathing with Dr. Carl Hunt (Hunt CE et al.  Am Rev Respir Dis. 1978 Jul;118(1):23-8) he moved to the State University of New York at Buffalo as a Research Assistant Professor of Physiology (1976-1977) under the direction of Dr. Leon E. Farhi, (one of the leaders in the field of Pulmonary Physiology) on the effects of gravity on the cardiopulmonary system (Matalon SV, Farhi LE.  J Appl Physiol. 1979;47(3):503-7) and then on pulmonary oxygen toxicity (Nickerson PA et al. Am J Pathol. 1981;102(1): 1-9; Matalon S et al.  J Appl Physiol.;54(3):803-8).  He was promoted to Assistant Professor (tenure track) of Physiology in 1977 and to Associate Professor with tenure in 1982. During his time in Buffalo he collaborated with Dr. Edmund Egan to demonstrate increased alveolar epithelial permeability to solute in rabbits exposed to hyperoxia (Matalon S, Egan EA.  J Appl Physiol. 1981;50(4):859-63), with Dr. Peter Nickerson to publish one of the first papers showing that bleomycin causes pulmonary fibrosis (Matalon S et al. J Appl Physiol. 1985;58(6):1802-9) and with Dr. John Krasney to study the effect of hypoxia on conscious animals (Krasney JA et al.  Respir Physiol. 1984;57(1):73-88). In 1983 he established a collaboration with Drs. Bruce A. Holm and Robert A. Notter from the University of Rochester to study the biochemical mechanisms by which hyperoxia damaged the pulmonary surfactant system both in vivo and an in vitro. In collaboration with these investigators, he published the first study showing that exogenous surfactant administration mitigated acute lung injury in adult rabbits following exposure to hyperoxia (Matalon S et al. J Appl Physiol. 1987;62(2):756-61).  This collaboration has continued for 25 years, the most recent paper on this subject was published in 2007  Hickman-Davis JM et al.  Am J Respir Cell Mol Biol. 2007 Jan;36(1):103-13).

In 1987, Dr. Matalon spent a six month sabbatical leave with Dr. Bruce A. Freeman, a leading investigator in Free Radical Biochemistry, in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Freeman had recently been recruited to UAB by Dr. Simon Gelman to establish a group of investigators to study free radical injury in various organs. Dr. Matalon joined the permanent faculty at UAB as Professor of Anesthesiology (primary appointment) and Professor of Physiology and Biophysics (secondary appointment) on August of 1987. He collaborated with Dr. Bruce Freeman on various projects on oxidant injury to the alveolar epithelium Matalon S et al.  Free Radic Biol Med. 1989;6(6):557-64;  Royall JA et al.  Am J Physiol. 1989;257(6 Pt 1):L399-410; Baker RR et al.   Am J Physiol. 1990 Oct;259(4 Pt 1):L328-34) and with Drs. Dale J. Benos, Kevin Kirk and Richard Shoemaker on characterizing the biophysical properties of lung epithelial sodium channels and their regulation by reactive oxygen nitrogen intermediates (Yue G. et al.   Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1995;92(18):8418-22; Yue G et al.  Am J Physiol. 1994;267(1 Pt 1):L94-100; DuVall MD et al.  Am J Physiol. 1998 May;274(5 Pt 1):C1417-23).  He also collaborated with Dr. Joseph Beckman (who first described the formation of peroxynitrite) and Dr. Imad Y. Haddad to show that peroxynitrite was formed in the lungs of children with ARDS (Haddad IY et al.  J Clin Invest. 1994 Dec;94(6):2407-13), and to show that nitration of surfactant protein A decreases its ability to enhance pathogen killing (Greis KD et al.  Arch Biochem Biophys. 1996 Nov 15;335(2):396-402; Zhu S.  et al. Am J Physiol. 1998 Dec;275(6 Pt 1):L1031-9.).  This was the first study to identify specific sites of nitration in a lung protein and to demonstrate that nitration resulted in loss of function.  Subsequent studies with Dr. Matthay, showed the presence of nitrated SP-A in the edema fluid of patients with acute lung injury (Zhu S et al. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2001 Jan;163(1):166-72).

In 1998 he started a very productive collaboration with Drs. Russell J. Lindsey and Judith M. Hickman-Davis on the role of surfactant proteins on mycoplasma killing which lasted until Dr. Lindsey retired from UAB.  They demonstrated that surfactant protein A plays an essential role in the killing of mycoplasmas by alveolar macrophages by enhancing their endocytosis and peroxynitrite formation Hickman-Davis J et al.  Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999 Apr 27;96(9):4953-8) and that C57Bl/6 congenic mice have decreased ability to kill mycoplasmas Hickman-Davis JM et al. Am J Respir Cell Mol Biol. 2004;30(3):319-25) and experience more extensive injury to their alveolar epithelium as compared to wild type controls (Hickman-Davis JM et al.  Am J Respir Cell Mol Biol. 2007 Jan;36(1):103-13).  Finally, they showed that reactive species generated from peroxidase catalyzed reactions play an essential role in damaging epithelial sodium channels and compromise lung epithelial sodium channels and alveolar fluid clearance in mice infected with mycoplasmas Hickman-Davis JM et al.  Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2006 Feb 1;173(3):334-44).  Current research efforts focuses on understanding the mechanisms by which viruses and reactive oxygen nitrogen species damage the activity of lung ion channels and in developing countermeasures to lung injury caused by chlorine inhalation (see Recent Research).

Dr. Matalon has been continuously funded by NIH since 1978, first as a program leader in a program project directed by Dr. Farhi and then as principal investigator of individual RO1s. He was awarded a NIH Merit Award at 1997.   He was named the Alice McNeal Professor of Anesthesiology in 1999. He was appointed Associate Dean for Postdoctoral Education in 2001, Senior Associate Dean of the Graduate School and Assistant Provost of Research in 2002, Acting Associate Provost for Research in December of 2002 and Acting Vice President of UAB in July 2003. Currently, he is the Director of Research, Division of Critical Care and Perioperative Medicine of the Department of Anesthesiology.  He is also Professor of Physiology and Biophysics and Microbiology, School of Medicine, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and a member of the Free Radical in Biology and Medicine and Cystic Fibrosis Research Centers. He also serves as Deputy Editor of the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology (“Red Journal”: http://ajrcmb.atsjournals.org/).