Lung diseases can be congenital or acquired after birth. Many lung diseases are life-threatening, or lead to chronic morbidity (debility). Millions of people in the United States and world-wide are affected by lung disease of one kind or another. Life-saving surfactant therapy for respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), which occurs in infants born prematurely, was developed at Cincinnati Children’s by Dr. Whitsett. This therapy alone has resulted in a major reduction in perinatal deaths in the United States and countries world-wide. In a similar manner, groups in our division are actively seeking new treatments and therapies for many other lung diseases that affect children and adults. Using a wealth of cutting-edge approaches (many of which have been developed in our division) our groups work on the pathogenesis (causes) of lung diseases with the goal of identifying new therapeutic targets.
Some of the lung diseases being studied in the Division of Pulmonary Biology include: