Pal Pacher, M.D., Ph.D.

Aging; alcohol and aging.; alcohol biomarkers; alcohol consumption and the immune system; Alcohol-associated Liver Disease; cardiovascular disease; Cell Biology; Genetics and Genomics; GPCR Signaling; Health Disparities; Immunology; liver pathology and fibrogenesis; medications development; metabolism; Molecular Pharmacology; Precision medicine

Dr. Pál Pacher received his M.D. and Ph.D. (summa cum laude) from Semmelweis University of Medicine, Hungary, in 1993 and 1999, respectively. After completing two years of research at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and an additional two years in drug development in the Boston area, he joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2003. In 2005, he became Chief of the Section on Oxidative Stress and Tissue Injury, earning tenure in 2012. By 2015, Dr. Pacher advanced to the role of Head of the Laboratory of Cardiovascular Physiology and Tissue Injury at the NIAAA/NIH.

Dr. Pacher has co-authored over 400 peer-reviewed publications, accumulating over 70,000 citations, and has been consistently ranked among the world’s most highly cited researchers in multiple disciplines—including Pharmacology and Toxicology, Clinical Medicine, and Biology and Biochemistry—since 2010. He serves on the editorial boards of numerous scientific journals and has received numerous national and international awards for his research contributions. His work has been supported by prestigious grants, and he has been elected a Fellow of the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, and the American Physiological Society. Additionally, Dr. Pacher is a member of the Steering Committee of the Cancer Redox Biology Faculty at the National Cancer Institute.

Research Topics

The Laboratory of Cardiovascular Physiology and Tissue Injury (LCPTI) seeks to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of the complex interplay of oxidative/nitrative stress, inflammation, lipid signaling (for example endocannabinoid signaling) and cell death pathways (e.g. poly(ADP)-ribose polymerase) in tissue injury, and to identify new therapeutic targets using clinically relevant animal models of disease (e.g., ischemia reperfusion injury, cardiomyopathies/heart failure, nephropathies, cardiovascular aging, and alcohol induced cardiovascular, liver and kidney injury and neuroinflammation).