Rebecca F. Hough, MD, PhD

Dr. Rebecca Hough is an Assistant Professor in Pediatrics. She specializes in critical care medicine for children in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), including those recovering from surgery for neurosurgical and orthopedic conditions, as well as infants and children who need organ transplants, suffer trauma, or have respiratory and/or cardiovascular failure. Dr. Hough is a physician scientist, and her research interests are in the origins of pulmonary edema in the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS).
Dr. Hough studied Chemistry at Boston University. She then went on to obtain her Ph.D. degree in Biophysics in 2008, and her M.D. in 2010 from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, as part of their distinguished Medical Scientist Training Program. She completed her Pediatrics residency and Pediatric Critical Care Medicine fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center in 2017. During her fellowship, Dr. Hough obtained a training grant (T32) …from the NIH to pursue her interests in ARDS. She began her work under the mentorship of the renowned lung biologist, Dr. Jahar Bhattacharya, learning highly specialized techniques in in situ imaging of mouse lungs. Dr. Hough was hired as faculty in the Division of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine after graduating from fellowship.
Dr. Hough's research is focused on the early events of Acute Lung Injury, which leads to ARDS. ARDS is deadly to both children and adults, with mortality rates of 10-15% in children. Using RNA interference and transgenic mouse lines, she has identified a novel role for lung capillary mitochondria in mediating the pulmonary edema that is essential for the development of Acute Lung Injury. It is Dr. Hough's hope that her work on elucidating the molecular mechanisms of ARDS will lead to targeted therapies to alleviate morbidity and mortality.