J. Michael (Mike) Wells, MD, MSPH is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He joined faculty in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine in 2012 after completing training in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Disease, and Critical Care Medicine at UAB. Dr. Wells is a physician-scientist with an expertise in translational and clinical research focusing on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD), and pulmonary vascular disease. Drs. Mark Dransfield and Ed Blalock mentored him as a T32 post-doctoral trainee and K08-awardee and were instrumental in his career development. He is the Medical Director for the UAB Heersink School of Medicine Lung Health Center, the Heersink School of Medicine Endowed Professor in Airways Biology, co-director for the UAB Translational Cardiopulmonary Research Program, and leads a basic-science laboratory as a R01-funded investigator. Dr. Wells has led multiple industry, federal, and foundation-supported clinical and translational studies and was a previous recipient of an ALA-ACRC pilot project award. He is an investigator with the ALA-ACRC, Lung Health Cohort, SPIROMICS/SOURCE, Alpha-1 Biomarker Consortium, and COPDGene. Dr. Wells was the Section Chief for Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the Birmingham VA Healthcare System from 2020-2024. Dr. Wells has published a number of seminal observations in high profile journals for work related to matrikines and their role in COPD pathogenesis, biomarker discovery, and CT indices of pulmonary vascular disease. He has received numerous honors during his career including the Pittman Scholarship and Dean’s Excellence Award in Research at UAB, the Sreedhar Nair Early Stage Investigator in COPD by the American Thoracic Society, and Young Physician-Scientist by the American Society for Clinical Investigation. Dr. Wells has trained 13 post-doctoral fellows, 7 students, and mentored 7 junior faculty in his tenure
