Lisa A. Maier, MD, FCCP

Special Interests

Clinical Interests

Dr. Lisa Maier has a clinical practice focused on occupational lung disease in the Occupational and Environmental and Granulomatous Clinics at National Jewish Health.  The major emphasis of her clinical practice is granulomatous lung diseases, including chronic beryllium disease, a granulomatous lung disease of known etiology, and sarcoidosis, a granulomatous lung disease of unknown etiology.

Research Interests

In addition to her clinical practice, Dr. Maier has a busy research agenda. Her work as a clinician researcher complements her clinical practice as she is involved in numerous research projects evaluating the natural history, immunologic mechanisms, and genetic and exposure risks associated with beryllium sensitization, chronic beryllium disease, and other granulomatous and occupational lung diseases that she sees in the clinic. The majority of her research is aimed at understanding susceptibility factors in the development of granulomatous lung diseases, including genetic and exposure factors, and factors which predispose people to more severe forms of the disease.

As part of these studies, we are building beryllium cohorts from worksites and building sarcoidosis cohorts from our clinic. These projects emphasize molecular epidemiology, evaluation of genetic susceptibility factors, assessment of exposures and determination of gene by gene and gene by environment interactions.

These research efforts straddle the bench/basic science and epidemiology with implications for the clinic and workplace. In addition to the above activities, Dr. Maier enjoys teaching occupational medicine residents, pulmonary fellows, educating other physicians, health care providers, and workers and providing consultation to workers and industry.