Grant: Team Grant: Lung Health - Inflammation and Lung Health

Inflammation is an important cause of chronic lung disease, but exposure to pro-inflammatory stimuli (e.g., tobacco smoke, air pollution) does not harm everyone equally. Emerging evidence suggests that lung growth and immune development are interconnected and, when impaired, increases risk of lung disease across the lifespan. Our proposal will investigate the intersection of inflammation and lung growth in diverse populations in hopes of identifying novel strategies to meaningfully and equitably achieve lifelong health. Our lungs grow 1000-fold in size and develop a specialized immune system to defend against inflammatory stimuli over the entire life course. We and others have shown that impaired lung growth is associated with higher levels of inflammation well into adulthood and pre-mature death from inflammation-driven diseases (e.g., chronic obstructive lung diseases, respiratory infection, cardiovascular disease, cancer). These findings suggests that lung growth impairment is associated with sustained activation of inflammatory pathways that increase lung disease risk - a concept we term "immune dysanapsis" (dys=unequal; anaptixy=growth). If funded, this grant will unite experts in respiratory epidemiology, medicine, physiology, lung immunobiology and environmental exposure assessment. We include diverse and understudied populations in terms of ages, genetic ancestry, socio-economics and urban/rural communities. Impact: The proposed research will establish immune dysanapsis an important contributor to lung health and disease across the life course. It will facilitate identification of modifiable exposures, periods of susceptibility, clinical relevance and promising biological pathways to target in future research to achieve lifelong lung health.