Pulmonary Fibrosis, Immune Responses & Guidance Proteins - The Herzog Lab at Yale School of Medicine

Transcript

• 00:06We don't fully understand why
• 00:08pulmonary fibrosis
• 00:10happens.
• 00:11We think the lung has
• 00:12become injured for some reason,
• 00:15and that in an attempt
• 00:16to suppress the injury,
• 00:18the lung develops
• 00:20an ongoing healing process.
• 00:22It generates extra tissue and
• 00:25it's trying to regrow itself,
• 00:27but it can't and as
• 00:28a result you just get
• 00:30more and more scar formation
• 00:32to the point where the
• 00:33lungs become stiff, they're full
• 00:35of scar tissue and it's
• 00:37difficult for patients to take
• 00:38a deep breath and it's
• 00:39difficult for patients to live
• 00:41their daily lives. I mean,
• 00:42a cause is shorter life
• 00:44because they ultimately results in
• 00:47lung failure.
• 00:53My lab is devoted to
• 00:54finding a cure for pulmonary
• 00:56fibrosis,
• 00:57and we do this by
• 00:58studying
• 00:59immune responses
• 01:01and neuronal guidance proteins. For
• 01:03years, it was thought that
• 01:04the immune system had no
• 01:05role in pulmonary fibrosis.
• 01:07We all know that the
• 01:09immune system
• 01:10really helps us fight off
• 01:12infection, but there's a whole
• 01:13other role for the immune
• 01:15system in regulating
• 01:17how tissue responds to injury.
• 01:20Netrin one was initially discovered
• 01:22as a neuronal guidance protein.
• 01:24It was discovered that they
• 01:25also had important roles in
• 01:27immunity
• 01:28and in tissue remodeling. And
• 01:30so when we initially began
• 01:32studying netrin one and proteins
• 01:33like netrin one, we were
• 01:35studying how netrin one regulates
• 01:38immune responses
• 01:39during
• 01:40healing. Recently though,
• 01:43we made the completely
• 01:45unexpected finding that in addition
• 01:47to these immunologic functions, Netrin
• 01:49one contributes to tissue repair,
• 01:51remodeling,
• 01:52and also fibrosis
• 01:54through its originally
• 01:55described function
• 01:57of stimulating
• 01:58nerve growth and mediating where
• 02:00nerves are going
• 02:02during development and during repair.
• 02:09When you're trying to develop
• 02:10a treatment for a human
• 02:12disease, having a human relevant
• 02:14modeling system is critically important.
• 02:16I have to develop models,
• 02:18like little simulators
• 02:19of the human disease in
• 02:21the laboratory that we've engineered
• 02:23to express human genes and
• 02:25act like human fibrosis
• 02:27when we study it. Other
• 02:29times, we're studying samples that
• 02:31we get from our patients
• 02:32in the clinic, you know,
• 02:34cells or blood specimens and
• 02:36we're understanding the immune system
• 02:37through those samples.
• 02:39But other times we're making
• 02:41what we call mimetics, which
• 02:43is where we're using human
• 02:45organs that we get from
• 02:46pathology
• 02:47and create a little mini
• 02:49lung in the laboratory that
• 02:50we can use to study
• 02:51human biology.
• 02:57My
• 02:58goal
• 02:59is based on my hope
• 03:00that we will find a
• 03:02way to cure pulmonary fibrosis.
• 03:04Whether this is through prevention,
• 03:07meaning we understand why does
• 03:09pulmonary fibrosis develop and how
• 03:11can we prevent that.
• 03:13Whether it's developing
• 03:14a drug or a method
• 03:16that we can use to
• 03:17to halt the disease so
• 03:18there's no further progression
• 03:20or that we will get
• 03:21to the point where we
• 03:23advance science such that the
• 03:25next generation of scientists can
• 03:26pick up where we left
• 03:27off and we end up
• 03:29with being able to reverse
• 03:30the disease,
• 03:31eradicate fibrosis, and have normal
• 03:33lung regrow so patients who
• 03:35were previously sick can become
• 03:37healthy.