Project 458584

Often, understanding how a disease develops and progresses on the cellular level is a key step in developing cures and preventative measures. In our research laboratory, we work on a specific type of immune cells called macrophages, that is often associated with many different diseases. We believe that changing the way these macrophages behave will slow down the progression of these diseases. In the proposed work, I plan to compare macrophages across several known lung diseases that currently have very few good treatment options. Further, we believe that one specific subtype of macrophages are present in these various lung diseases. Identifying and targeting that one subtype of macrophage could help develop treatments for a wide range of lung diseases. However, before we can do this, we need to confirm the presence and characteristics of this macrophage subtype. We plan to do this by comparing and contrasting the presence and behaviour of macrophages in lung tissues derived from patients. These tissues can come from patients that do not have any specific disease (as controls), patients diagnosed with lung cancer, patients diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (a disease where lungs become scarred over time, making it difficult to breathe) and patients diagnosed with Pulmonary Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (a rare lung disease that develops both tumors and scarring). Once we have identified these "bad" macrophages, we will examine ways of modulating their behavior using cellular systems and assays that are already established in our laboratory. To do this work, we have assembled a multidisciplinary team of molecular scientists, clinicians, pathologists, bioinformaticians and chemists that will work together to not only identify these macrophages but provide context and resources to continue this work to better provide novel treatment options for several different chronic lung diseases.