Rate My Professor Matthew Poynter

Matthew Poynter, Ph.D., is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine. He holds leadership positions as Director of the Vermont Lung Center and Director of the Cellular, Molecular, and Biomedical Sciences PhD Program. Poynter's research investigates the airway epithelium's role in innate and adaptive immune responses to environmental stimuli, with a focus on mechanisms underlying allergic airway inflammation and diseases such as asthma. He serves on the Research Committee of the Department of Medicine and leads the NIH-funded T32-HL076122 Multidisciplinary Training in Lung Biology grant, which supports predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees in pulmonary research.

Poynter completed his early studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth from 1989 to 1991 and earned a B.S. with honors in Microbiology from Montana State University in Bozeman, MT, in 1993. He obtained his Ph.D. in experimental immunopathology from the University of Vermont College of Medicine in 1998, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Pathology at the University of Vermont from 1998 to 2001. Since joining the faculty at the University of Vermont, he has advanced through academic ranks to full professor. His contributions include mentoring graduate students in the CMB program and overseeing research at the Vermont Lung Center. Key publications encompass studies on lung inflammation pathways, such as 'NF-κB Activation in Airways Modulates Allergic Inflammation' (American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology, 2004), 'IL-6 is required for airway mucus production induced by inhaled β-defensins' (Journal of Immunology, 2009), and 'Weight Loss Decreases Inherent and Allergic Methacholine Hyperresponsiveness in Mouse Asthma Models' (American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology, 2016). These works have informed understanding of proinflammatory signaling and therapeutic targets in respiratory diseases.