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Project

Lung-on-a-chip as a dynamic tool to capture interplay between airway and vascular cells in their microenvironment: a focus on the course of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which is estimated to become the third leading cause of death worldwide by 2030, is actually the only major disease whose prevalence and mortality are increasing worldwide in all continents. Despite intensive research, there are still unmet medical needs for this disease. Abnormal responses of the airway epithelium to the environmental triggers are believed to contribute to the pathogenesis of COPD and the dysregulation of the complex interactions between the different cell types from the lung airway tissues is likely contributing to these abnormal responses. The current project focuses on the dynamic response and cross talk between the airway epithelium and underlying microvascular endothelium when the cells are exposed as in vivo to cyclic stretching reproducing breathing movement, shear stress due to fluid circulation and COPD related triggers (cigarette smoking, bacterial/viral infection). A small airway-on-a-chip approach is used to recapitulate the complex in vivo cellular microenvironment of human airway epithelial and pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells using different models to study cross-talk in early disease and how it evolves with disease progression. We believe this innovative and robust in vitro model will help highlighting new disease severity specific-mechanisms which may help developing safer and more efficient drugs that could be tested on this system.

Date:1 Jan 2021 →  Today
Keywords:Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
Disciplines:Cell signalling, Cellular interactions and extracellular matrix, Organ physiology, Cell physiology, Respiratory medicine