Paul N. Lanken, MD is Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Critical Care Section’s Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Division at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he also served as Medical Director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit from 1987-1999. Dr. Lanken is currently the principal investigator of an NIH-funded clinical network for the study of Prevention and Treatment of Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). The project includes randomized clinical trials involving Intensive Care Unit patients with sepsis or ARDS.

Active in the field of biomedical ethics, Dr. Lanken is Senior Fellow of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics and Coordinator for Bioethics Teaching at Penn Med. He is particularly interested in areas of bioethics relevant to intensive care situations, such as withholding and withdrawing life support, informed consent of critically ill patients and the allocation of scarce and expensive resources. Dr. Lanken also specializes in the evaluation and treatment of patients with pulmonary alveolar proteinosis. He has performed more than 200 lavages over the past 20 years and currently performs 15 to 20 lavages per year. Dr. Lanken’s expertise in clinical critical care medicine and pulmonary diseases is well-documented through numerous publications and research findings. He is senior editor of The Intensive Care Unit Manual, 2nd Edition.