Robert Dickson, MD

Robert Dickson received his undergraduate degree in liberal arts from St. John's College, and received his MD from the Duke University School of Medicine. He then completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Washington, followed by year as Chief Medical Resident at Harborview Medical Center. He completed his fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Michigan and joined the faculty in 2015. He joined the Department of Microbiology & Immunology in 2019.

Dr. Dickson's research focuses on understanding how microbial communities in the respiratory tract and gut contribute to respiratory illness and health. He uses techniques of microbial ecology and molecular microbiology to understand how the body’s bacteria are altered by lung disease and critical illness, and how they in turn contribute to the pathogenesis of disease. His laboratory performs integrative translational research, spanning from molecular characterization of respiratory microbiota to animal modeling of acute lung disease to prospective trials of human subjects. Areas of clinical interest include the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), sepsis, and pneumonia.

Dr. Dickson is a Senior Editor at Microbiome, a Specialist Editor of European Respiratory Journal, and a member of the Editorial Boards of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and Lancet Respiratory Medicine. His research is funded by the NIH and the European Commission.

As a clinician, Dr. Dickson cares for critically ill patients in the University’s Critical Care Medicine Unit (CCMU) and as Medical Director of the Washtenaw County Tuberculosis Clinic.