Welcome to the Bruscia Lab

My lab has a longstanding interest in cystic fibrosis (CF), a recessive genetic multiorgan disease that affects the lung, gut, pancreas, liver, and reproductive tissues. We investigate how a specific group of immune cells, the monocytes and the macrophages, contributes to the overwhelming inflammation, the inefficient host defense against bacteria and the altered lung tissue repair processes that characterize CF lung disease.

Ultimately, we aim to identify potential mechanism-based therapeutic targets that, in conjunction with the current CFTR modulator therapies, will help prevent progressive lung tissue deterioration in CF patients. In our preclinical investigations we use CF patients’ biological specimens, CF mouse models, and CF primary and immortalized cells.

We closely collaborate with the CF Center at Yale New Haven Hospital, and with multiples investigators at Yale and around the country. We use intradisciplinary methodologies that bridge the lung immunology and hematopoietic stem cell fields to address unexplored questions related to the contribution of altered immunity to the progression of lung disease in CF.