Douglas B. Cowan

Douglas B. Cowan serves as a Staff Scientist in the Cardiology and Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children's Hospital and holds an Associate in Surgery position at Harvard Medical School. His career spans over three decades with foundational training in genetics and molecular biology.

• B.Sc. in Honors Genetics, University of Western Ontario (1987)
• M.Sc. and Ph.D., University of Toronto (1989, 1994)
• Postdoctoral Fellowship, MRC-sponsored at Mount Sinai Hospital and Toronto General Hospital

Dr. Cowan's research focuses on mitochondrial transplantation as a novel therapy for ischemia-reperfusion injury, with pioneering work demonstrating that autologous mitochondria injected during reperfusion significantly enhance cardiac recovery. His expertise bridges cardiovascular molecular biology, bioengineering, and translational surgical innovation, particularly in developing rapid mitochondrial isolation techniques and coronary delivery systems. Current investigations explore mitochondrial integration mechanisms in human cardiomyocytes using super-resolution microscopy.

His publication portfolio includes 124 works with 4,810 citations and an h-index of 39, dominated by high-impact studies in PLoS ONE, American Journal of Physiology, and Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. Key trends show evolution from foundational work on endothelial junctions (1999) to mitochondrial therapy dominance since 2009, with recent expansion into stroke applications (2023) and donor heart preservation (2022).

Dr. Cowan collaborates extensively with James D. McCully (135+ co-publications), Pedro J. del Nido, and Ingeborg Friehs within the Cardiac Surgery Research Laboratory at Boston Children's Hospital. Current projects include optimizing mitochondrial delivery for pediatric cardiac applications and investigating metabolic mechanisms in fatty acid metabolism post-transplantation.