He has a secondary appointment as an associate staff scientist in the Lerner Research Institute Department of Pathobiology, where his research focus is idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Dr. Southern explores how fibroblasts and myofibroblasts (the scar-producing cells in IPF) interact with lung tissue matrix to propagate fibrosis. He has identified that the molecular motor protein, non-muscle myosin II, is a critical molecule driving fibrosis, and is further characterizing the myosin II pathway in fibroblasts in order to identify novel targets to halt fibrosis in patients with IPF.