Stretching Cells

Ella Stasko

Last Edited: 06.28.2024

Patients with end stage lung disease have just one option, traditional transplantation. Unfortunately, this can be unreliable with too long a waiting list and too few doners. Here in the Weiss Lab, we are working to combat this transplant crisis by clearing the path to alternative options. One promising route is by creating artificial lungs. Ideally, a lung scaffold could be recellularized with cells derived from the recipient and implanted just like in traditional transplantation. This would eliminate both the chance of organ rejection and the need for donors.

However, this process is complicated and before a functional organ can be created, many fundamental research questions must be addressed. In the lab, Chika has dedicated her research to overcoming a critical barrier by furthering our knowledge of lung epithelial cells.

In the alveoli of a human lung, there are essentially three cell types. Alveolar type 1 cells (AT1s), alveolar type 2 cells (AT2s) and macrophages. AT1s perform gas exchange, AT2s, among other functions, serve as progenitor cells for AT1s, and macrophages work on behalf of the immune system. Before an artificial lung can be created, all three cell types must be accessible for experimentation to be fully understood. However, AT1s are notoriously difficult to isolate and culture. As the functional cell of the lung that performs gas exchange, it will be impossible to create an artificial organ without access to these cells. Because of this, Chika is working to find a repeatable, reliable method of differentiating AT2s into AT1s. Specifically, she is working to understand the role of mechanical cues on primary AT2s.

The goal of her work is to understand whether mechanical stimulation alone can be used to induce AT2 differentiation. If so, she hopes to create a repeatable, reliable protocol to maintain AT1s. To do this, primary AT2s are cultured on different decellularized extracellular matrix (dECM) coatings and subject to a cyclic biaxial stretch regimen to best mimic the lung environment. Once it is possible to easily maintain AT1s in culture, we can understand much more about their behavior and work towards utilizing them to solve the transplant crisis.