Biosketch:  The Prakash Lab's long-term research goals are to study the interface between sterile and infectious inflammation and how the innate immune system is able to distinguish between the two and respond appropriately. We are interested in how damage markers are generated in trauma and ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury, how these are sensed and how infiltrating immune inflammatory cells are targeted to the lung. As an anesthesiologist focused on trauma care, Dr. Prakash cares for many patients suffering from injuries in which both sterile and infectious inflammation can occur. In the laboratory, we have recreated traumatic lung injury derived from IR using a mouse microsurgical model. We have had a long interest in identifying molecular, cellular, and signaling regulators of sterile lung injury, specifically generation of damage markers, role of the inflammasome in lung IR injury and associated response to super-imposed or concurrent infections (Prakash et al., Anesthesiology 2012, Tian et al., Frontiers in Immunology 2017). Our other main ongoing studies involve projects that attempt to uncover a link between the gut microbiome and lung inflammatory responses (Prakash et al., Shock 2015, Tian et al., and Frontiers in Microbiology 2019, Liu et al. AJP Lung 2021) and we are actively working on identifying specific microbial metabolites that mediate the gut-lung immune axis.