2025 Kayla Bell Citizen Award Winner
The Pulmonary Center is happy to announce Kara Vasilew as the winner of the 2025 Kayla Bell Pulmonary Center Citizenship Award! Kara Vasilew PhD Student The Kayla Bell Pulmonary Center Citizenship Award was established to celebrate and commemorate Kayla’s time at the Pulmonary Center, and to encourage others to follow in her footsteps. It is […]
Genetic Risk Improves Identification of Undiagnosed COPD Beyond Conventional Case-Finding
Jingzhou Zhang, M.D., M.P.H., senior pulmonary and critical care fellow, explored the role of genetic risk in identifying undiagnosed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). COPD, a highly prevalent condition and a leading cause of morbidity and mortality, often remains undiagnosed. Traditional case-finding approaches that rely on conventional risk factors and respiratory symptoms have been shown […]
BU and GSK Announce Collaboration to Pioneer New Lung Disease Treatments
An exciting new collaboration between the pharmaceutical company GSK and pulmonary researchers in the CReM has been newly been established. This partnership will further advances against pulmonary fibrosis, with the hope of finding new treatments and cures. As a collaborating partner, GSK will provide support in the form of funding and access to patient specimens. […]
Genetically Predicted Body Mass Index and Mortality in COPD
Dr. Jingzhou Zhang, a senior pulmonary fellow, investigated the role of BMI in COPD mortality through a multi-cohort genetic epidemiology study. While both low and extremely high BMI are associated with increased mortality in COPD, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Using a polygenic score for BMI, Dr. Zhang and colleagues found that genetically determined BMI […]
Dr. DJ Wallman Granted Ignition Award
We are pleased to share that Dr. DJ Wallman was granted an Ignition Award, provided by BU Technology Development to better support upcoming science and technology. Personalized, precision gene editing therapy has the potential to revolutionize medicine and therapeutic development relies on access to disease models for pre-clinical studies. Limited access to an adequate number […]
Ligresti group provides insights into aging-related lung endothelial cell dysfunction
A recent Nature Communications paper led by Dr. Giovanni Ligresti and in collaboration with Dr. Bob Varelas identifies new endothelial cell (EC) subtypes that emerge after lung injury. These “activated lung EC subtypes” were found to persist in aged mice compared to young mice following injury, and are observed in areas of extracellular matrix accumulation […]
Podcast episode featuring Fellow Dr. Lauren Kearney
Lauren Kearney, MD, fourth year pulmonary fellow, was in a recent podcast episode of The Other Page Radio on WBCA 102.9 FM, hosted by Haywood Fennell. Fennell founded The Tri-Ad Veterans’ League and is a community partner for Dr. Renda Wiener’s VA funded research project VET PEER CONNECTS. They were joined by Steven Abrams, the […]
Using In-Hospital Mortality as a Quality Metric Unfairly Penalizes Safety-net Hospitals
Assistant Professor Anica Law has led a team demonstrating that safety net hospitals have 30-day sepsis mortality rates that do not differ from 30-day sepsis mortality rates in other (non-safety net) hospitals. This may seem surprising, since safety net hospitals report higher in-hospital sepsis mortality compared to non-safety net hospitals, confirmed in this study. Patients […]
2024 Kayla Bell Citizen Award Winner
The Pulmonary Center is happy to announce Riley Pihl as the winner of the 2024 Kayla Bell Pulmonary Center Citizenship Award! Riley Pihl PhD Student The Kayla Bell Pulmonary Center Citizenship Award was established to celebrate and commemorate Kayla’s time at the Pulmonary Center, and to encourage others to follow in her footsteps. It is […]
New Program Project Grant on “Developing Pluripotent Stem Cells to Model and Treat Lung Disease”
A team of Pulmonary Center researchers, led by Dr. Darrell Kotton, has been awarded a five-year, $14 million grant from the NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for his research, “Developing Pluripotent Stem Cells to Model and Treat Lung Disease.” The other PIs on this award are Drs. Andrew Wilson, Finn Hawkins, and Kostas […]