Marie-Francoise Doursout, PhD, is a professor in the department of anesthesiology at the McGovern Medical School, UTHealth Houston, Texas. Dr. Doursout’s laboratory is focused on animal physiology with a special emphasis on cardiovascular and pulmonary health and disease. As a result of her work, Dr. Doursout has introduced many innovations to the field of cardiovascular physiology by developing animal models to study the relationship between impaired vascular tone and inducible nitric oxide synthase to better understand the mechanisms involved in pathological conditions, such as inflammation, septic shock and pulmonary fibrosis. Her results have led to significant publications in high-impact, peer-reviewed journals. Recently, Dr. Doursout has been involved as a co-investigator in two clinical studies to assess the role of markers of inflammation in people with Parkinson’s disease (funded by The Michael J. Fox Foundation) and in COVID-19 acute respiratory distress syndrome (funded by Akebia Therapeutics).