A physician scientist, Dr. David Cornfield is actively engaged in clinical medicine, teaching and research. In clinical arena, Dr. Cornfield is a Pediatrician with an active practice in both Pediatric Pulmonary Medicine and Pediatric Critical Care Medicine.

Over the past 20 years, the Cornfield Laboratory has focused upon basic, translational and clinical research, with a primary focus on lung biology. As an active clinician-scientist, delivering care to acutely and chronically ill infants and children, Dr. Cornfield has noted the evolution of chronic and acute lung diseases in infants and children in terms of disease manifestation, diagnosis, management and epidemiology. Accordingly, the areas of emphasis of the laboratory continue to evolve, shift, and even occasionally change entirely. 

Dr. Cornfield's lab addresses several large thematic issues. The areas of concentration include: (i) regulation of pulmonary vascular tone; (ii) oxygen sensing in the lung; (iii) biological determinants of preterm labor focusing on myometrial smooth muscle cells; (iv) developmental regulation of barrier function in the lung; and (v) the role of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 in lung development. In addition, there is an active translational research component.