Samson Hennessy-Strahs
Researcher who moved from studying heart pumps and blood vessels at Penn to transplant immunology in Houston, and first author of a study showing that the lung's cleaning macrophages need mTOR to survive
Immunobiology and Transplant Science Center and Department of Surgery, Houston Methodist Hospital, and Texas A&M University College of Medicine (papers 2025–2026) · Texas A&M University (2022 paper) · Division of Cardiovascular Surgery, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (papers 2017–2021)
Samson Hennessy-Strahs is first author of an Atlas study (HEN2026) on alveolar macrophages, the immune cells that sit in the tiny air sacs of the lung and swallow up surfactant, the soapy film that keeps the sacs open. In mice, the team removed mTOR only from myeloid cells, the family that includes macrophages. The alveolar macrophages slowly disappeared, the ones left could not eat particles well, fat built up inside them, and the lungs filled with material in a pattern resembling pulmonary alveolar proteinosis, a rare human lung disease. Treating normal mice with the mTOR-blocking drug temsirolimus gave a similar picture.
The finding matters because mTOR inhibitors are used in transplant patients and in cancer, and some patients develop lung problems on them. The study suggests one possible reason: the drugs may starve the lung's own cleaning crew. The work was done in mice, so whether the same happens in patients still has to be shown.
The publication record shows two research phases. From 2017 to 2021 Hennessy-Strahs worked in the Division of Cardiovascular Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, mostly with Carlo Bartoli, on how left ventricular assist devices (mechanical heart pumps) damage blood proteins such as von Willebrand factor and cause abnormal blood vessels in the gut. A 2022 paper lists Texas A&M University. Since 2025 the papers come from Xian C. Li's transplant immunology group at Houston Methodist Hospital, including a 2025 study on reprogramming macrophages to protect heart transplants in mice. The 2026 Atlas paper also lists the Texas A&M Naresh K. Vashisht College of Medicine. No official profile page was found, so the current role could not be confirmed.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | A | Survival and Homeostasis of Alveolar Macrophages in Vivo Depend on mTOR Signaling HEN2026 First author: showed in mice that alveolar macrophages need mTOR to survive and that losing it, by gene deletion or the drug temsirolimus, causes a lung disease resembling pulmonary alveolar proteinosis. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 1
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Samson Hennessy-Strahs.
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- Xian Chang Li Transplant immunologist who studies how the immune system rejects or tolerates transplants, and how drugs such as mTOR inhibitors act on immune cells.
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