Grant: Emerging Team Grant: Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine - LOI

Severe influenza can be deadly when it damages the lungs and causes plasma fluid and white cells to leak into the air sacs, all too often with devastating consequences. Unfortunately, there are no effective therapies and treatment is limited to supportive care and mechanical ventilation, which is often not successful. Members of this new Team are pioneering the use of adult stem cells to reduce and repair the lung injury, which is caused not only by the viral attack, but importantly by collateral damage from an often overly vigorous inflammatory response of the lung. Preliminary studies by the team leader in other types of lung injury have shown that a certain kind of bone marrow stem cell can moderate the initial immune attack and reduce the injury to the delicate walls of the air sacs, as well as possibly enhancing the repair of lung damage. Together, these effects can result in dramatic improvement in breathing and survival. A new team has been assembled of scientists from different disciplines to efficiently validate this approach in relevant mouse models of human H1N1 influenza and uncover the reasons by which stem cells can dramatically improve outcome, and thereby optimize the treatment to enhance its efficacy. The overall goal of this team is develop a therapy that could be potentially life saving for patients with severe influenza infection, even within the term of this award.