Lung Immunity & Infection
The lungs contain an amazingly sophisticated and specialized system of immune defense. This immunity does a remarkable job most of the time, as lungs are constantly challenged but usually healthy. However, respiratory infections like pneumonia and influenza are among the worst burdens of disease worldwide every year, are the leading cause of death due to infection in the US, and are the number one most common reason that American children get hospitalized. In addition, the immune processes that normally protect the lung against infection instead contribute to the pathogenesis of perhaps every pulmonary disease, including ARDS, asthma, COPD, lung cancer, ILD, pulmonary hypertension, and more. Some of the Pulmonary Center research interests related to lung immunity and infection include:
Adaptive immunity in the lungs (Center, Maglione, Mizgerd, Remick)
Allergic airways disease (Center, Chen, Cohen, Little, O’Connor, Remick)
Alveolar macrophages (Bosmann, Fine, Jin, Jones, Kramnik, Mizgerd, Quinton, Wilson)
COVID-19 (Bosmann, Kotton, Mizgerd, Walkey, Wilson)
Epithelial immune function in the lung (Jin, Hartshorn, Jones, Mizgerd, Quinton, Traber)
Influenza, RSV, and other respiratory viruses (Fearns, Hartshorn, Mizgerd, Rock)
Innate immunity in the lungs (Bosmann, Jin, Jones, Kramnik, Mizgerd, Quinton, Traber)
Lung injury (Bosmann, Jin, Mizgerd, Quinton, Traber, Walkey)
Lung resident memory lymphocytes (Mizgerd)
Neutrophils (Bosmann, Hartshorn, Mizgerd, Quinton, Traber)
Pneumococcal infections (Maglione, Mizgerd, Pelton)
Pneumonia (Bosmann, Hamer, Jones, Maglione, Mizgerd, Pelton, Quinton, Remick, Traber, Walkey)
Primary Immunodeficiency (Maglione)