College of Engineering and BU School of Medicine Lead NIH Grant
A new grant from the National Institutes of Health will support a collaborative effort to uncover how the lung’s microscopic structure shapes its response to inhaled particles. The project is led by Associate Professor Hadi Nia (BME, MSE) and Joseph Mizgerd, the Jerome S. Brody, MD, Professor of Pulmonary Medicine at the Aram V. Chobanian & Edward Avedisian School of Medicine, with Professor Bela Suki (BME, MSE) and Assistant Professor, Katrina Traber, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, serving as co-investigators. By bringing together expertise in biomedical engineering, lung physiology, immunology, and infectious diseases, the grant will strengthen collaboration between the College of Engineering and the Aram V. Chobanian & Edward Avedisian School of Medicine.
Furthering the impact of previous research
The four-year, $2.8 million grant will build on the team’s development of the “crystal ribcage,” an imaging platform that allows scientists to observe the intact, breathing lung in real time and at cellular resolution. Using this technology, the investigators discovered that inhaled particles do not spread evenly throughout the lung. Instead, alveoli—the tiny air sacs responsible for gas exchange—appear to be organized into a mosaic pattern. Some groups of alveoli, called “tiles,” consistently receive inhaled particles, while neighboring “bands” receive very little. This unexpected organization was recently reported in a Nature Biomedical Engineering paper and has been observed across different types of inhaled materials, animals of different ages, and multiple species.
Convergent Research
“This new NIH grant represents the next stage of convergent research among BU colleges,” said Nia. “It will further connect engineering innovation with fundamental and clinically relevant questions in lung biology.” Mizgerd added “When different teams across BU schools and campuses address together important questions that neither can address alone, the research grows in new directions and the process of discovery is both more fun and more productive.”
The project will investigate whether tile and band alveoli differ in their anatomy, oxygen levels, development, gene activity, and immune responses. The researchers will also study how these regions respond to potentially harmful inhaled particles and how deposited materials move through the lung and into the circulation. The findings could reshape the current understanding of how the lung is organized and may have broad implications for respiratory disease, environmental exposures, aerosol-based drug delivery, and the development of new treatments.
This collaboration grew from an interdisciplinary partnership initially supported by an award from the Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering. That early investment enabled researchers from the College of Engineering and the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine to combine complementary technologies and scientific perspectives. The partnership has since produced the Nature Biomedical Engineering study, additional research advances, new federal funding, and important training opportunities for students, including F30 fellowships for physician-scientist trainees.