Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

In Canada 8% of all babies are born preterm (before 37 weeks of gestational age). One of the most common complications seen in these children is bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), a long lasting lung disease. These babies need a breathing machine and supplemental oxygen to stay alive; unfortunately, this also damages the still growing lung. Currently there is no treatment for BPD. Babies with BPD are often sent home with oxygen and continue to have lung problems such as asthma or emphysema ("smoker lung" even without smoking) later in life. We found a possible new treatment: our body contains stem cells, a pool of cells that can become any type of cell in the body. Stem cells help organs to grow and to repair. Previously, we found that a particular type of stem cell from the cord blood (mesenchymal stromal cell or MSC) can heal the lung of newborn rats exposed to high oxygen (BPD model). But babies that have BPD have more MSCs in their breathing tube indicating that the lung MSCs don't do their job in BPD. In the research presented here, we found that in newborn rats exposed to high oxygen the MSCs from their lungs impair the formation of blood vessels, which is necessary for the growing lung. Moreover, they are no longer expressing the right genes to support the growing lung or to control the immune system. In conclusion, in our model the MSCs likely contribute to the development of BPD. It is important to understand the good and bad things these MSCs can do because it may delay the use of MSCs as a new and desperately needed treatment for babies with BPD.