Dr. Joyce-Brady is Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine. He is an Attending Physician for the Medical Intensive Care Unit and the Pulmonary Consultation Service at Boston Medical Center . He is also the Director of Pulmonary, Respiratory Therapy and Ventilator Care Services at The Radius Specialty Hospital-Boston and Quincy.

Dr. Joyce-Brady’s research is focused on the response of the developing and the adult lung to oxidant stress. His focus is on glutathione and glutathione metabolism, particularly in the lung lining fluid that baths the surface of the lung. His laboratory has characterized the key enzyme in glutathione metabolism, gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), and a mouse model of GGT deficiency, the GGTenu1 mouse. This work has revealed the presence of glutathione metabolism in LLF and a novel target that can augment lung lining fluid glutathione content under oxidant stress associated with inflammatory lung disease.

His laboratory has also utilized several tools to study gene expression in the developing lung, including suppression subtractive hybridization, differential display and microarrays. Selected genes that are developmentally regulated in the perintal period are now under study in adult lung to decipher their role in repair following injury. One such gene, fibulin-5, is a regulator of elastogenesis and severe emphysema develops with fibulin-5 deficiency in the knock out lung. Fibulin-5 is a matrix protein that also functions in antioxidant defense and current studies are aimed at integrating the loss of elastogenesis with oxidant stress.