Dr. Zea Borok is the Helen M. Ranney Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine. She previously served as Chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine and Director of the Hastings Center for Pulmonary Research, at the University of Southern California. Her research focuses on function and differentiation of the alveolar epithelial lining of the lung and mechanisms regulating repair and regeneration following injury. Dr. Borok has been continuously funded by the NIH for over 20 years and is the recipient of an R35 Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. She is an elected member of the Association for American Physicians and a recipient of a Recognition Award for Scientific Accomplishment from the American Thoracic Society.