Immunobiology and alveolar physiology of the aging lung

Project Narrative Aging of the lung is associated with increased susceptibility to lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome from infectious and non-infectious causes. There are multiple confounding factors that predispose the elderly to respiratory diseases, including functional alterations in the lung epithelial and alveoli and immunosenescent changes in the immune cells resident in the lung and in lung-associated lymphoid tissues. In the proposed study, we will obtain human lungs from organ donors of all ages, and investigate age-associated changes in the lung-resident immune cells, alveolar physiology and mitchondrial dynamics, and will also apply single cell RNA-seq to define the age-related gene expression program in the lung and the interaction of the pulmonary and immune systems.