Alexander St. John
Assistant Professor
Department of Emergency Medicine
Sites of Practice: 
Harborview Medical Center

Faculty Information

Biography

Dr. St. John is a clinician-scientist in Emergency Medicine. He cares for patients in the Emergency Department at Harborview Medical Center, and he performs mechanistic and translational research in the UW Emergency Medicine Research Laboratory and at Bloodworks Research Institute. He strives to use his clinical work and research to inform and advance each other to ultimately improve the outcomes of patients.

Dr. St. John’s research is focused on understanding the causes of trauma-induced coagulopathy and finding new hemorrhage-control therapies to improve resuscitation outcomes of trauma patients. He has a particular focus on platelet dysfunction after trauma, and he hopes that by developing a deeper understanding of what causes it, he can develop new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to this problem. He receives funding from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the United States Department of Defense.

Education & Training: 
MD
University of Arizona College of Medicine
2010
Residency, Emergency Medicine
University of Arizona
2013
Contact
Email: 
aestjohn@uw.edu
Mailing Address: 

University of Washington Medical Center
Magnuson Health Sciences Building,
F Wing, UW Box 357235
1705 NE Pacific Street
Seattle, WA 98195

Research & Clinical Interests
Research Interests: 

Trauma

Trauma-Induced Coagulopathy

Platelet Dysfunction

Hemorrhage Control

Resuscitation of Shock

Active Grants:

  1. Title: Understanding Microcirculatory Obstruction in Critical Illness
    • Sponsor: UW Royalty Research Fund (RRF) Grant
    • Dates: 1-year
    • Budget: $40,000
  2. Title: Dysregulation of Platelet-von Willebrand Factor Interaction in Trauma-Induced Coagulopathy
    • Sponsor: NIH K08 Grant
    • Dates: 5-year
    • Budget: $780,000
  3.  Title: A second-generation prolonged damage control resuscitation cocktail for polytrauma

    • Dates: 2017 - 2020

    • Role: Co-investigator

    • PI: Dr. Nathan White

    • FTE: 20%

    • Sponsor: United States Department of Defense, Joint Program Committee 6 / Combat Casualty Care Research Program, Prolonged Field Care Research Award (Award number: W81XWH-16-DMRDP-CCCRP-PFCRADM160100)

    • Total Costs: $1,495,028

  4. Title: Therapeutic limb cooling to prevent amputation in prolonged damage control resuscitation

    • Dates: 2017 - 2020

    • Role: Co-investigator

    • PI: Dr. Eileen Bulger, Department of Surgery, University of Washington

    • FTE: 5%

    • Sponsor: United States Department of Defense, Joint Program Committee 6 / Combat Casualty Care Research Program, Prolonged Field Care Research Award (Award number: W81XWH-16-DMRDP-CCCRP-PFCRADM160100)

    • Total Costs: $1,500,000

Publications
PubMed: 
PubMed Bibliography
My NCBI: 
My NCBI Bibliography
Publications: 

See below for recent publications:

  1. St. John AE, Wang X, Lim EB, Chien D, Stern SA, White NJ. Effects of rapid wound sealing on survival and blood loss in a swine model of lethal junctional arterial hemorrhage. Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery. 2015 Aug; 79(2): 256-62. [Original work].
  2. Baylis JR, Yeon JH, Thomson MH, Kazerooni A, Wang X, St. John AE, Lim EB, Chien D, Lee A, Zhang JQ, Piret JM, Machan LS, Burke TF, White NJ, Kastrup CJ. Self-propelling particles that transport cargo through flowing blood and halt hemorrhage. Science Advances. 2015 Oct; 1(9): e1500379. [Original work].
  3. White NJ, Mehic E, Wang X, Chien D, Lim E, St. John AE, Stern SA, Mourad PD, Rieger M, Fries D, Martinowitz U. Rediscovering the wound haematoma as a site of haemostasis during major arterial haemorrhage. Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis. 2015 Dec; 13(12): 2202-9. [Original work].
  4. White N, Wang Y, Fu X, Cardenas JC, Martin EJ, Brophy DF, Wade CE, Wang X, St. John AE, Lim EB, Stern SA, Ward KR, López JA, Chung D. Post-translational oxidative modification of fibrinogen is associated with coagulopathy after traumatic injury. Free Radical Biology and Medicine. 2016 Apr; S0891-5849(16)30041-7. [Original work].
  5. Baylis JR (co-first author), St. John AE (co-first author), Wang X, Lim EB, Statz ML, Chien D, Simonson E, Stern SA, Liggins RT, White NJ, Kastrup CJ. Self-propelled dressing containing thrombin and tranexamic acid improve short-term survival in a swine model of lethal junctional hemorrhage. Shock. 2016 Sep; 46(3 Suppl 1): 123-8. [Original work].