Key Researcher
Michael Puskarich, MD, MS, is a clinician scientist and acute care clinical trialist, as well as an actively practicing emergency physician.
Dr. Puskarich currently serves as an Emergency Physician, Director of Research in the Department of Medicine, and board member at Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute (HHRI). He also devotes his time as an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School. He completed his Doctorate in Medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a Master of Science in Clinical Research at Drexel University. His clinical research focuses on the identification, prognosis, and treatment of emergency care conditions, particularly sepsis.
Clinical Trials, Infectious Disease/Sepsis
Dr. Puskarich is an internationally recognized expert on sepsis and has lent his expertise to guideline writing committees including the Surviving Sepsis Campaign. He has published extensively on the importance of various biomarkers and risk prognosticators, their relationship to patient outcomes, and their ability to provide insights into the underlying pathophysiology of sepsis. His publications include numerous studies examining the mechanisms of various treatments through the conduct of nested clinical trials, ranging from platelet mitochondrial and functional assessments to metabolomics. Overall, the goal of this work is to develop precision medicine paradigms for the treatment of heterogeneous critical care conditions, such as sepsis, by only targeting patients with the relevant pathophysiology active at the time of enrollment.
Hand-in-hand with this research and training, he completed a K23-awarded study (K23GM113041) through the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). He has extensive experience in the development, implementation, monitoring, and publication of FDA-regulated investigator-initiated clinical trials, having been continuously grant-funded since 2010.
In this vein, Dr. Puskarich assisted in the design and conduct of three investigator-initiated clinical trials (NCT01193777 – AHA 10POST3560001; NCT01665092 – R01GM103799; NCT00823108) attempting to leverage metabolic therapies for the treatment of cardiovascular failure in sepsis. More recently he received a U01 award through the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to act as the Principal Investigator (PI) for an adaptive phase II, dose-finding trial for the use of senolytics in older patients with infections. It will examine the effect of the drug on cellular senescence markers and inflammatory pathways.
Additionally, he was the Multiple Principal Investigator (MPI) of two recently completed randomized clinical trials of losartan for COVID-19 in the inpatient and outpatient settings and was the Investigational New Drug (IND) sponsor of both trials (NCT04312009 and NCT04311177). He acts as the MPI of the Upper Midwest SIREN Hub (U24NS100649), was the site PI within the NHLBI PETAL network (U01HL123022), the ACTIV-4d / NECTAR trial, the CDC RECOVER network (75D30121C11813), and has also led sites in an NHLBI supported cardiac arrest trial (R01HL112815) and NHLBI pulmonary embolism trial (1UM1HL113203).
He has published 130+ peer-reviewed manuscripts with 250+ unique co-authors. Most of these publications relate to sepsis or other acute care clinical trials (including pulmonary embolism, cardiac arrest, and acute respiratory distress syndrome), demonstrating the breadth of his experience within emergency care research, as well as his capacity for cross-disciplinary collaboration.
Pub Med
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=puskarich+m&sort=pubdate
Google Scholar
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=otF0QdgAAAAJ&hl=en
As of 5/2023:
>130 peer-reviewed publications
>7000 citations
H index – 37
i-10 index – 74
Publications
- Puskarich MA, Trzeciak S, Shapiro NI, Albers AB, Heffner AC, Kline JA, Jones AE, Whole blood lactate kinetics in patients undergoing quantitative resuscitation for severe sepsis and septic shock. Chest. 2013 Jun;143(6):1548-1553. doi: 10.1378/chest.12-0878. PMID: 23740148.
- Puskarich MA, Trzeciak S, Shapiro NI, Arnold RC, Horton JM, Studnek JR, Kline JA, Jones AE, Association between timing of antibiotic administration and mortality from septic shock in patients treated with a quantitative resuscitation protocol, Emergency Medicine Shock Research Network (EMSHOCKNET). Crit Care Med. 2011 Sep;39(9):2066-71. doi: 10.1097/CCM.0b013e31821e87ab. PMID: 21572327.
- Puskarich MA, Marchick MR, Kline JA, Steuerwald MT, Jones AE, One-year mortality of patients treated with an emergency department-based early goal-directed therapy protocol for severe sepsis and septic shock: a before and after study. Crit Care. 2009;13(5):R167. doi: 10.1186/cc8138. Epub 2009 Oct 21. PMID: 19845956.
- Puskarich MA, Sterling SA, Miller WR, Pryor J, Jones AE, The Impact of Timing of Antibiotics on Outcomes in Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Crit Care Med. 2015 Sep;43(9):1907-15. doi: 10.1097/CCM.0000000000001142. Review. PMID: 26121073.
- Puskarich MA, Finkel MA, Karnovsky A, Jones AE, Trexel J, Harris BN, Stringer KA, Pharmacometabolomics of l-carnitine treatment response phenotypes in patients with septic shock. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2015 Jan;12(1):46-56. doi: 10.1513/AnnalsATS.201409-415OC. PMID: 25496487
Key Researcher
Michael Puskarich, MD, MS, is a clinician scientist and acute care clinical trialist, as well as an actively practicing emergency physician.
Dr. Puskarich currently serves as an Emergency Physician, Director of Research in the Department of Medicine, and board member at Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute (HHRI). He also devotes his time as an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School. He completed his Doctorate in Medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a Master of Science in Clinical Research at Drexel University. His clinical research focuses on the identification, prognosis, and treatment of emergency care conditions, particularly sepsis.