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Lung Inflammaging Lab

Lung diseases and respiratory infections are leading causes of death world-wide. The elderly population is at an increased risk of developing age-related chronic and acute lung diseases. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic illustrates the need to better understand and target age-related predisposition of the lung to disease development.

We want to understand how cellular aging affects stem cell capacities and cell-cell crosstalk, especially between immune cells and stem cells. In order to allow the aging lung to efficiently repair, we aim to identify biomarkers as well as develop therapeutic strategies targeting cellular aging phenotypes, thereby opening novel avenues for the diagnosis and treatment of chronic lung diseases.

Cellular Senescence in Chronic Lung Diseases

We aim to define cell- and disease-specific cellular senescence  as a basis for designing novel approaches to pharmacologically target cellular senescence in chronic lung diseases.

Extracellular Vesicles as Mediator of Age-Associated Chronic Lung Diseases

We study extracellular vesicles  within the context of their role in senescence-related processes in lung tissues, cell-cell communication, and their potential contribution to aging-associated comorbidities of patients.

Immunoregulation of Stem Cell Function

 We investigate how senescence of the immune system (immunosenescence) affects stem cell function in the lung and, therefore, contributes to the course of chronic lung diseases.

Tools

We use a variety of state of the art technologies to pursue our research projects.