Homer L. Twigg III, MD

Bio

Homer L. Twigg III, M.D. is a Professor of Medicine in the Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine Division at Indiana University. Dr. Twigg did his Medical School training at Georgetown University, Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Pulmonary/Critical Care Fellowship at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas (Parkland). He joined the faculty at Indiana University in 1989 and served as the Chief of the Division 2000 to 2017. Dr. Twigg has a long research interest in pulmonary host defense in HIV infection and has served on many special emphasis panels sponsored by the NHLBI in this area. He also served a term as a standing member of the Lung Cellular, Molecular, and Immunobiology (LCMI) study section.  Dr. Twigg has been investigating the lung Microbiome and Virome in healthy subjects and patients with HIV infection, attempting to link the microbial milieu to chronic inflammation and chronic diseases found in the HIV-infected and aging population.  These concepts have led to his current area of research investigating how viral persistence, even by viruses not known to cause latency, can lead to chronic immune stimulation and chronic disease.  This work has led to Dr. Twigg’s most recent NIH funding to study post-COVID lung disease, hypothesizing that SARS-CoV-2 proteins and RNA persist in extracellular vesicles and are capable of eliciting an immune and inflammatory response leading to delayed cryptogenic organizing pneumonia and pulmonary fibrosis in these patients.