Research Interests

Lung injury, regeneration, and repair, progenitor cell regulation, lung development, and transcriptional regulation of lung disease 

Keywords

Lung biology, stem cell biology, adult stem cells, transcriptional regulation, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and regenerative medicine.

Description of Research

Our laboratory is interested in untangling the molecular mechanisms that regulate progenitor and stem cell biology in the lung. The lung is often considered a "quiescent" organ, but it actually has an amazing regenerative capacity! We have a special interest in the smallest human airways, the respiratory airways. These are a site of injury in many lung diseases, but they do not exist in small animal models. We have shown that this region is the site of a novel human lung progenitor population, Respiratory Airway Secretory Cells (RASCs).  Our focus in the respiratory airways has led us to explore and develop novel model systems to interrogate human lung biology. We take a multifaceted approach by incorporating next-generation sequencing, stem cell modeling, primary human organoids, large animal modeling, and more. We are interested in all aspects of progenitor cell biology, including transcriptional regulation, clonal relationships, injury responses, and regenerative capacity. 

References

Basil MC, Cardenas-Diaz FL, Kathiriya JJ, Morley MP, Carl J, Brumwell AN, Katzen J, Slovik KJ, Babu A, Zhou S, Kremp MM, McCauley KB, Li S, Planer JD, Hussain SS, Liu X, Windmueller R, Ying Y, Stewart KM, Oyster M, Christie JD, Diamond JM, Engelhardt JF, Cantu E, Rowe SM, Kotton DN, Chapman HA, Morrisey EE. Human distal airways contain a multipotent secretory cell that can regenerate alveoli. Nature. 2022 Apr;604(7904):120-126.

Mellors PW, Lange AN, Casino Remondo B, Shestov M, Planer JD, Peterson AR, Ying Y, Zhou S, Christie JD, Diamond JM, Cantu E, Basil MC, Gill S. Shared roles of immune and stromal cells in the pathogenesis of human bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome. JCI Insight. 2025 Apr 15;10(10)