Genetic Analysis of Lung Transplant Recipients
Lung transplants have been performed in over 20,000 individuals with advanced lung disease, with two-year survival of approximately 70% and dramatic improvements in quality of life. However, long-term survival rates are considerably lower than those enjoyed by kidney, heart, and liver recipients, largely due to the effects of acute and chronic lung rejection. This group’s overall research goal is to reduce the negative impact of graft injury and rejection after lung transplantation. They are studying gene expression in lung cells in order to develop new ways of identifying lung injury and rejection before they result in irreversible damage to the transplanted lungs. This will improve the outcomes of many lung transplant recipients. In addition, results of these studies will potentially be applicable to very common non-transplant obstructive pulmonary diseases that involve bronchial remodeling, including asthma and COPD. These researchers use MSI resources to store and analyze the large amount of lung cell gene expression data generated by their experiments.