Boston Children's Hospital
I am an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and attending physician in pediatric pulmonary medicine at Boston Children's Hospital. My laboratory uses induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-based platforms and gene-editing techniques to study the basic cellular mechanisms underlying cystic fibrosis (CF) with the hope to be translated to clinical applications. In medical school, I pursued a year of Howard Hughes Medical fellowship, characterizing SARS-coronavirus lung injury, which inspired me to pursue a career in pediatric pulmonology. As a pediatric pulmonologist, I became fascinated by a cohort of extreme-phenotype CF patients, many of whom I take care of in my clinical practice, and embarked on a journey to study these patients. I recruited this cohort of CF patients, performed whole exome sequencing to identify candidate variants, generated iPSC lines, and created multiple syngeneic CFTR-corrected counterparts. Working with the Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM) of Boston University, I helped to optimize the novel directed differentiation of iPSCs to airway epithelium through the airway basal-cell intermediate (iBCs), and applied this system to model CF defect in ion and fluid transport using my CF pre- and post-CFTR corrected syngeneic iPSC lines. I have also demonstrated the de novo generation of pulmonary ionocytes from iPSCs. In my laboratory, I am modeling CF defect in ion and fluid transport using the iPSC-airway system, studying my extreme-phenotype patients who harbor candidate modifying variants in alternative epithelial ion channels, and interrogating the functional roles of the pulmonary ionocytes using the iPSC-platform. I am also using CF and CFTR-corrected iPSC-airways to model CF response to both emerging (ie. SARS-CoV-2) and relevant (H1N1, Pseudomonas aeruginosa) pathogens.
Thursday, November 3, 2022
3:30 PM – 5:30 PM ET
Thursday, November 3, 2022
3:30 PM – 5:30 PM ET