Assistant Professor
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
Laura L. Walkup, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Division of Pulmonary Medicine and Department of Radiology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center with an affiliated appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at University of Cincinnati. Dr. Walkup earned her Ph.D. in chemistry in 2013 from Southern Illinois University Carbondale where her dissertation focused on the production of hyperpolarized xenon-129 gas for magnetic-resonance applications. In 2013, she joined the Center for Pulmonary Imaging Research at CCHMC as a postdoctoral fellow, and in 2019, she was promoted to assistant professor. Her research focuses on all aspects of hyperpolarized-gas MRI research, including technical developments for better 129Xe gas manufacturing, clinical protocol development and implementation, and translational applications in pediatric and adult lung diseases to quantify regional lung structure, function, and pathophysiology. Dr. Walkup has collaborations across the spectrum of rare-lung disease including cystic fibrosis, the childhood interstitial lung diseases, and pulmonary complications following bone-marrow transplantation. Dr. Walkup has co-authored 39 scientific papers and review articles and has presented her work at the American Thoracic Society, the North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference, and other international conferences. She is interested in using MRI to understand rare-lung disease mechanisms and pathophysiology, longitudinal progression and natural history, and how MRI biomarkers can personalize clinical care and evaluate therapeutic response for individuals living with cystic fibrosis and other rare-lung diseases.