Dr. Darryl Knight

2007 Career Investigator Award, Senior Scholar

Mechanisms and consequences of aberrant repair in the lung|,|

The World Health Organization estimates that up to 150 million people worldwide suffer from asthma. The disease places a huge burden on the health-care system, with economic costs greater than of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS combined. A related disease is idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a chronic disease causing inflammation and scarring of the air sacs and connective tissues of the lungs. IPD has no cure or effective therapy. There are more than 200,000 patients with this disease in North America and more than 40,000 die annually – about the same number of people who die from breast cancer each year.

Current research shows that both diseases develop through the same molecular pathways used for normal wound healing. With asthma and IPF, however, the normal stop or ‘brake’ mechanism doesn’t work properly, resulting in the production of too much connective tissue and scarring.

Dr. Darryl Knight’s research aims to increase our understanding of how abnormal repair responses within the lung cause asthma and IPF. He is focusing on the epithelial cells that line the airways, and the adjacent fibroblasts, which produce connective tissue. His work will describe mechanisms for cellular differentiation during normal repair and explain the effects of pollutants and underlying disease on differentiation. Ultimately, his research could point to new candidates for intervention and treatment of complex respiratory diseases.

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