Ehab Billatos, M.D.

Assistant Professor of Medicine

Education

B.S. Microbiology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas – 2006
M.D., University of Texas Health Sciences Center, San Antonio, Texas – 2010
Internal Medicine Residency, University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, Texas – 2013
Pulmonary Critical Care Fellowship, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts – 2016
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Pulmonary Center, Boston University Medical Center, Boston, MA 2016 – 2017

Contact Information

Email: ebillato@bu.edu
Office: E611
Phone: 617-358-7039

Research Interests

Dr. Billatos is an assistant professor of medicine with a focus in the early detection of lung cancer. He is the Principal Investigator for the DECAMP consortium (Detection of Early Cancer Among Military Personnel) which aims to improve the early diagnosis of lung cancer in veterans via biomarker validation and development. This project serves as a biorepository of specimens and data unparalleled in contemporary pulmonary medical research. Dr. Billatos has also leveraged the DECAMP cohort to study other smoking-related lung diseases enriched for in this patient population. Among the conditions explored in this cohort are Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Bronchiectasis, mucus plugging, and also Covid-19.

Finally, Dr. Billatos is also a practicing pulmonologist with an active practice evaluating patients with indeterminate pulmonary nodules identified via the BMC lung cancer screening program. He is an expert in advanced bronchoscopy including endobronchial ultrasound and robot-assisted navigational bronchoscopy.

Publications

Gesthalter, Y.B., Billatos, E., Kathuria, H. Chapter 9 – Lung Cancer. In: David SP, editor. Genomic and Precision Medicine (Third Edition) [Internet]. Boston: Academic Press; 2017 [cited 2018 May 29]. page 165–80. Available from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128006856000096

Billatos, E., Faiz, A., Gesthalter, Y., LeClerc, A., Alekseyev, Y.O., Xiao, X., Liu, G., Ten Hacken, N.H.T., Heijink, I.H., Timens, W., et al. (2018). Impact of acute exposure to cigarette smoke on airway gene expression. Physiol. Genomics 50, 705–713.

Billatos, E., Vick, J.L., Lenburg, M.E., and Spira, A.E. (2018). The Airway Transcriptome as a Biomarker for Early Lung Cancer Detection. Clin. Cancer Res.

Billatos, E., Duan, F., Moses, E., Marques, H., Mahon, I., Dymond, L., Apgar, C., Aberle, D., Washko, G., Spira, A., et al. (2019). Detection of early lung cancer among military personnel (DECAMP) consortium: study protocols. BMC Pulm Med 19, 59.

Choi, Y., Qu, J., Wu, S., Hao, Y., Zhang, J., Ning, J., Yang, X., Lofaro, L., Pankratz, D.G., Babiarz, J., Billatos, E., et al. (2020). Improving lung cancer risk stratification leveraging whole transcriptome RNA sequencing and machine learning across multiple cohorts. BMC Med Genomics 13, 151.

Belok, S., Herbst, N., and Billatos, E. (2020). A chocolate effusion – An unusual cause of elevated adenosine deaminase in the pleural fluid. Respir Med Case Rep 31, 101260.

Billatos, E., Ash, S.Y., Duan, F., Xu, K., Romanoff, J., Marques, H., Moses, E., Han, M.K., Regan, E.A., Bowler, R.P., et al. (2021). Distinguishing Smoking-Related Lung Disease Phenotypes Via Imaging and Molecular Features. CHEST 159, 549–563.

Johnson, S. W., & Billatos, E. (2021). Polymicrobial empyema; a novel case of Actinomyces turicensis. Respiratory Medicine Case Reports, 32, 101365.

Lui, J. K., Billatos, E., & Schembri, F. (2021). Evaluation and management of pleural sepsis. Respiratory Medicine, 187, 106553.

McCandless, M., Perry, A., DiFilippo, N., Carroll, A., Billatos, E., and Russo, S. (2021). A Soft Robot for Peripheral Lung Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy. Soft Robot.

Kinsey, C.M.*, Billatos, E.*, Mori, V., Tonelli, B., Cole, B.F., Duan, F., Marques, H., de la Bruere, I., Onieva, J., San José Estépar, R., et al. (2021). A simple assessment of lung nodule location for reduction in unnecessary invasive procedures. J Thorac Dis 13, 4207–4216. *co-first authors

Kammer, M.N., Lakhani, D.A., Balar, A.B., Antic, S.L., Kussrow, A.K., Webster, R.L., Mahapatra, S., Barad, U., Shah, C., Atwater, T., Billatos, E., et al. (2021). Integrated Biomarkers for the Management of Indeterminate Pulmonary Nodules. Am J Respir Crit Care Med.

Xu K, Shi X, Husted C, Hong R, Wang Y, Ning B, Sullivan TB, Rieger-Christ KM, Duan F, Marques H, Gower AC, Xiao X, Liu H, Liu G, Duclos G, Platt M, Spira AE, Mazzilli SA,

Billatos E, Lenburg ME, Campbell JD, Beane JE. Smoking modulates different secretory subpopulations expressing SARS-CoV-2 entry genes in the nasal and bronchial airways. Sci Rep. 2022 Oct 28;12(1):18168. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-17832-6. PMID: 36307504; PMCID: PMC9615627.

Pare JR, Gjesteby LA, Telfer BA, Tonelli MM, Leo MM, Billatos E, Scalera J, Brattain LJ. Transfer Learning for Automated COVID-19 B-Line Classification in Lung Ultrasound. Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2022 Jul;2022:1675-1681. doi: 10.1109/EMBC48229.2022.9871894. PMID: 36086232.

Xu K, Diaz AA, Duan F, Lee M, Xiao X, Liu H, Liu G, Cho MH, Gower AC, Alekseyev YO, Spira A, Aberle DR, Washko GR, *Billatos E, *Lenburg ME; DECAMP investigators. Bronchial gene expression alterations associated with radiological bronchiectasis. Eur Respir J. 2023 Jan 27;61(1):2200120. doi: 10.1183/13993003.00120-2022. PMID: 36229050; PMCID: PMC9881226. * Co-senior authors.

Marmor HN, Kammer MN, Deppen SA, Shipe M, Welty VF, Patel K, Godfrey C, Billatos E, Herman JG, Wilson DO, Kussrow AK, Bornhop DJ, Maldonado F, Chen H, Grogan EL. Improving lung cancer diagnosis with cancer, fungal, and imaging biomarkers. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2022 Dec 23:S0022-5223(22)01354-X. doi: 10.1016/j.jtcvs.2022.12.014. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36792410.

Van Lewen D, Janke T, Austin R, Lee H, Billatos E, Russo S. A Millimeter-Scale Soft Robot for Tissue Biopsy Procedures. Adv Intell Syst. 2023 May;5(5):2200326. doi: 10.1002/aisy.202200326. Epub 2023 Jan 27. PMID: 37637939; PMCID: PMC10456987.

Marmor HN, Deppen SA, Welty V, Kammer MN, Godfrey CM, Patel K, Maldonado F, Chen H, Starnes SL, Wilson DO, Billatos E, Grogan EL. Improving Lung Cancer Diagnosis with CT Radiomics and Serum Histoplasmosis Testing. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2023 Mar 6;32(3):329-336. doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-22-0532. PMID: 36535650; PMCID: PMC10128087.

Bruhm DC, Mathios D, Foda ZH, Annapragada AV, Medina JE, Adleff V, Chiao EJ, Ferreira L, Cristiano S, White JR, Mazzilli SA, Billatos E, Spira A, Zaidi AH, Mueller J, Kim AK, Anagnostou V, Phallen J, Scharpf RB, Velculescu VE. Single-molecule genome-wide mutation profiles of cell-free DNA for non-invasive detection of cancer. Nat Genet. 2023 Aug;55(8):1301-1310. doi: 10.1038/s41588-023-01446-3. Epub 2023 Jul 27. PMID: 37500728; PMCID: PMC10412448.

Menon AA, Lee M, Ke X, Putman RK, Hino T, Rose JA, Duan F, Ash SY, Cho MH, O’Connor GT, Dupuis J, Hatabu H, Lenburg ME, Billatos ES*, Hunninghake GM*; DECAMP Investigators. Bronchial epithelial gene expression and interstitial lung abnormalities. Respir Res. 2023 Oct 10;24(1):245. doi: 10.1186/s12931-023-02536-w. PMID: 37817229; PMCID: PMC10566143. *co-senior authors.

Aniket Vazirani, Adriana Rodriguez, Flaminio Pavesi, Shannon McDermott, Howard Cabral,

Ehab Billatos, Kei Suzuki. Black race and lower age at surgery are associated with smoking relapse in a safety-net setting after surgery for stage I non-small cell lung cancer. Journal of Thoracic Disease. 2023 Sep 28; Vol 5, No 9.

Mettler SK, Nath HP, Grumley S, Orejas JL, Dolliver WR, Nardelli P, Yen AA, Kligerman SJ, Jacobs K, Manapragada PP, Abozeed M, Aziz MU, Zahid M, Ahmed AN, Terry NL, Elalami R, Estépar RSJ, Sonavane S, Billatos E, Wang W, Estépar RSJ, Richards JB, Cho MH, Diaz AA. Silent Airway Mucus Plugs in COPD and Clinical Implications. Chest. 2023 Nov 25:S0012-3692(23)05825-7. doi: 10.1016/j.chest.2023.11.033. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38013161.