The Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Therapy of the Carl Gustav Carus Faculty of Medicine at TU Dresden conducts research in all areas of our specialty, namely anesthesia, intensive care, pain therapy and critical emergency medicine, with a main focus on organ protection. The projects cover different aspects of medical investigation, from basic science up to clinical studies.
Accordingly, our department investigates signaling pathways of cells to different patterns of stretch and degrees of shear stress, which may be present during artificial lung ventilation. Also, we conduct research in small and large animal models of organ failure, especially those mimicking acute pulmonary diseases, where several investigational tools for tissue imaging are applied, or even developed in our research facilities, for example computed tomography, positron emission tomography, electrical impedance tomography, optical coherence tomography and spectroscopy and multimodal imaging.
Those methods are used for investigation of not only tissue structure and function, but also oncological changes of tissues. As part of a translational approach, findings are transported into clinical investigations and even therapy, whereby much of the research questions originate in the clinical activities of our department. In order to determine the potential of new developing, as well as already used therapeutic approaches for lung, kidney and brain protection, we perform several local and multicenter clinical trials. Last, but not least, we investigate effects of different intervention, including drugs, medical procedures and equipment on patient outcome, in order to provide physicians with evidence based recommendations.