3D Models of Pulmonary Fibrosis to Facilitate Precision Medicine
Abstract
Topic Area: Pulmonary Fibrosis Military doctors are becoming increasingly concerned that lengthy and frequent deployments in support of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan may lead to respiratory diseases in otherwise healthy Soldiers decades after they return from the battlefield. Levels of inhalational hazards, such as particulates in the air or smoke from job-related activities, are higher than average during these deployments and may result in respiratory diseases like idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). IPF is a chronic, progressive, and life-threatening disease that causes tissue deep within the lungs to become thick, stiff, and scarred. This stiffening and scarring interferes with a person’s ability to breathe, worsening over time until respiratory failure occurs, typically within 3 to 5 years of diagnosis. The long delay between repeated injury during deployment and onset of IPF symptoms (average age at diagnosis 57-75 years) is a motivating factor for working on new ways to understand this devastating disease now. As the average age of the populations exposed to inhalational hazards during deployment to Southwest Asia continues to increase, the incidence of IPF in this Veteran population is expected to increase to levels higher than that of the general population. One way to learn more about the progression and treatment of a disease like IPF is to study how lung cells respond to signals outside the body. This research can be done more quickly and inexpensively than animal or human studies but has traditionally been done in a Petri dish. These dishes are flat and significantly stiffer than the tissue in our lungs. Recent discoveries have demonstrated that these flat, stiff cell culture dishes cause unintended reactions in the cells that investigators are trying to study. For this reason, we propose to create three-dimensional (3D) cell culture platforms with mechanical and chemical properties that are inspired by real lung tissue. These improved models of healthy or diseased lung tissue can be used to study lung cell responses in a more natural environment that will not interfere with experimental conditions. We can use these models to test how patient-derived cells respond to therapies in a high-throughput manner, leading to a better understanding of how to cure fibrotic diseases like IPF and faster development of therapeutics. If successful, cells from individual patients could be grown in these new platforms to create personalized therapies to treat military personnel and civilians alike.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Mar 10, 2021
- Source ID
- W81XWH2010037
Entities
People
- Chelsea M. Magin
Organizations
- United States Army
- University of Colorado Denver