Mario Castro

Mario Castro, MD, MPH, received his medical degree from the University of Missouri in 1988 and his Master’s in Public Health from the St. Louis University School of Public Health in 1998. He is the Alan A. and Edith L. Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, and Radiology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. He is the Director of the Asthma and Airway Translational Research Unit (AATRU) at Washington University School of Medicine.

Dr. Castro's translational research projects are focused on the pathogenesis of asthma and clinical trials in the management of asthma, especially severe asthma. Dr. Castro is the lead investigator for two major asthma networks – the NIH AsthmaNet and the ALA Asthma Clinical Research Center (ACRC) network – which are studying better ways to treat asthma. He chairs the Protocol Committee for ACRC. He is also studying what makes severe asthma different from milder forms (Severe Asthma Research Program [SARP]) and chairs the Imaging and Quality Control Committees for SARP. He is the co-Principal investigator of the PCORI-funded D&I study of African American children with asthma evaluating if symptom-based asthma management by community pediatricians is superior to guideline-based asthma management and how to implement such an approach in practice.