October 17th, 2025
Irfan Rahman, Associate Professor
Irfan Rahman, PhD is a Dean’s Professor of Environmental Medicine, Medicine (Pulmonary), Public Health Sciences and General Dentistry at the University of Rochester Medical Center (School of Medicine and Dentistry), NY., and Director of Flavoring Inhalation Toxicology Center. Dr. Rahman has completed his postdoctoral trainings at the University of Miami, Florida, and Georgetown University, Washington, DC. He obtained further training at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland followed by a faculty appointment in the same University. He then joined the University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester in 2004.
Dr. Rahman’s research interests include oxidative stress, inflammation, molecular clock, mitochondrial dysfunction, epigenetics, and cellular senescence by environmental tobacco smoke/tobacco products (cigarette smoke, e-cigarettes, waterpipe/hookah, and cigars), airborne particulate matter, nanoparticles and PFOS/PFAS/microplastic/styrenes in lung (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis), as well as oral/periodontal diseases. His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health and he is the PD/site PI for the TCORS U54 and TriState SenNet U54 consortium. He has published over three hundred (300) publications in peer-reviewed journals, and invited to write chapters in textbooks and editorials in journals (h-index = 122, i-index 258), total citations >65,000, Highly Cited Researchers, 2014, 2015, and 2016 by Thomson Reuters). He has been ranked #16 (out of 52,718 active Respiratory & Allergy Researchers) by Ioannidis et al 2020. He is the editor/author of Inflammation, Aging, Diet and Nutrition - a book published by Elsevier in 2013. He has been serving as a member of several panels of National Institutes of Health (NIH) study sections (SIEE, chartered member), a chartered member of USA Veterans Administration panel on Pulmonary study section, and chair of California Cardiopulmonary tobacco research program.
He is a member of American Thoracic Society (ATS), American Physiological Society, and Society of Toxicology (SOT), and President for Inhalation Respiratory Specialty Section of the SOT 2020-2021, and Chair of Lung Aging Interest Group of the ATS. Dr. Rahman won numerous awards, such as an outstanding Senior Investigator Award by the Oxygen Society of California, USA in 2006, Senior Toxicologist Award by the SOT in 2017, and International Chemical Society in 2019, and American Thoracic Scientific Accomplishment Award in 2022, and Basic Science Leading Edge Award by the SOT in 2023.
Presentation Title: Toxicology, human health, and Emerging Tobacco-Nicotine and THC products