Trainee Triumphs
Several of our current or recent trainees have received exciting news. Congratulations to the following for these fellowship or faculty transition awards: “Microbial Dysbiosis and Epithelial Dysfunction in Vitamin A-deficient Lungs” F31 Predoctoral Fellowship, NIH Date of Award: 2/20/2023 Kiloni Quiles-Franco PhD Candidate – Molecular and Translational Medicine Pulmonary Center and Section of […]
Jerome S. Brody, MD
Our Pulmonary Center community is heartbroken by the loss of Jerry Brody, who passed away peacefully on January 22, 2023, at his home in Boston while surrounded by family, after a brave battle against Alzheimer’s disease. He was 88 years old. Jerry meant so much to us here at BU and in the Pulmonary Center. […]
CRISPR interference interrogation of COPD GWAS genes
This project developed to address limitations in our understanding of the genetic factors that predispose a subset of individuals exposed to environmental injury to develop COPD, a major contributor to morbidity and mortality worldwide. While genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have now identified 82 variants across the genome as significantly associated with risk of developing COPD, […]
A Multimodal iPSC Platform for Cystic Fibrosis Drug Testing
In 2022, the major challenge in cystic fibrosis is developing treatments for individuals who do not respond to highly effective modulator therapy. These individuals have mutations that lead to no residual CFTR protein. In vitro models have a proven track record in developing effective treatments for CF patients however access to cells from these high […]
New R01: Biology of Lymphangiogenesis in the Adult Lung
In June, we were delighted to learn that our new R01 entitled Biology of Lymphangiogenesis in the Adult Lung was funded. This work builds upon exciting data generated by Senegal Carty (PiBS graduate student) and Erin Crossey MD, PhD (pulmonary fellow; Figure 1) demonstrating that robust lymphangiogenesis (Figure 2) and changes in lymphatic cell phenotype […]
Junior Faculty Foundation Awards
Joseph Kaserman, MD Assistant Professor My award is from the Alpha-1 Foundation and is a 2-year Research Grant award from the foundation. The Title of the proposal is “Mechanisms of Hepatic Heterogeneity and ATF6 Mediated Metabolic Dysfunction in AATD.” In this proposal we are investigating mechanisms that could be contributing to the increased risk of […]
New RO1 grant awarded to Giovanni Ligresti
Dr. Ligresti has been awarded an NIH/NHLBI RO1 grant ($2.8M) to study the role of the pulmonary vasculature in the pathogenesis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). IPF is a progressive and fatal disease of aging that causes scar tissue to build up in the lung, leading to respiratory failure. Although the lungs of IPF patients […]
Winner of the First Annual Kayla Bell Citizenship Award
In the spirit of Kayla’s thoughtful and eager generosity, we have established a Kayla Bell Pulmonary Center Citizenship Award. This award will be an occasion to celebrate and commemorate the time that Kayla shared with us, bestowed annually to a member of the Pulmonary Center who most embodies Kayla’s kind and helpful manner. Congratulations […]
New model reveals early steps in ILD
Pulmonary fibrosis involves relentless progressive scarring of the lung. Its poorly understood pathogenesis, due in part to a paucity of productive disease models, hampers clinical advancement for interstitial lung disease (ILD). Assistant Professor Kontantinos Alysandratos and Professor Darrell Kotton have made a major advance in this arena by recapitulating early events in […]
Lung epithelial cells instruct T cells and adaptive immunity
Lung immunity is essential to combat all pulmonary diseases, including COVID-19, pneumonia, lung cancer, asthma and COPD. Lung immunity differs from the systemic immunity which is the normal focus of biomedical investigations and interventions, but factors influencing the establishment and regulation of lung immunity are mostly still unknown. Jay Mizgerd’s lab team, led by postdoc […]