Pulmonary Immune Dynamics Laboratory Overview
The long-term goal of our research is to define the lung host defense system as a dynamic and interacting biological network, and to understand how its disruption leads to disease. We investigate how coordinated signaling between pulmonary endothelial cells and immune cell populations governs the transition from physiological homeostasis to pathological conditions such as acute lung injury (ALI) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Our central hypothesis is that disease progression is not driven by the simple accumulation of individual molecular events, but rather by spatiotemporally organized network dynamics that can be quantified, predicted, and ultimately controlled.
Our laboratory integrates three major research axes focused on neutrophils, endothelial cells, and macrophages/monocytes. We have demonstrated that pulmonary neutrophils exhibit functional plasticity triggered by mechanical deformation during injury progression, enhancing host defense. In parallel, we investigate how the pulmonary capillary endothelial network regulates vascular barrier function in response to mechanical stimuli. We are currently expanding our efforts to include macrophages and monocytes, with the goal of establishing a systems-level understanding of lung immunity.
Our work is driven by several key innovations. Conceptually, we move beyond traditional static models of inflammation and tissue injury and instead propose a dynamic systems framework in which transitions in signaling states govern disease progression. Technically, we have developed a high-efficiency quantitative lung intravital imaging platform—Computer-Vision Stabilized Intravital Imaging (CoVSTii)—which corrects lung-specific motion artifacts and enables high-resolution analysis across a substantially larger fraction of the lung under physiological breathing conditions. Biologically, we have uncovered a novel principle whereby the lung host defense network exhibits plastic, mechanically driven shifts in its mode of response, highlighting the central role of pulmonary mechanobiology.
Through these approaches, we aim to establish fundamental principles of lung host defense and to develop new strategies for controlling inflammatory lung diseases.
Complete List of my Published Work
