Brandon John Harrison Banaschewski, PhD

Fibrosing interstitial lung disease (ILD) causes progressive shortness of breath in patients and has a median survival of three to five years after diagnosis. Current treatments work only to slow the rate of decline in lung function, but we do not have a way to prevent or cure the disease. A better understanding of the early stages of fibrosing ILD is crucial to preventing the disease onset. Fibroblasts are cells that help repair damage in the lung; however, they are also associated with scar formation in the lung over the course of fibrotic ILD. Previous research has identified a new inflammatory fibroblast that emerges during the early stages of fibrosis in mouse models of ILD. The goal of this study is to understand the role of these inflammatory fibroblasts by investigating what happens to these fibroblasts over the course of ILD, how these cells communicate with other cells in the fibrotic lung, and how eliminating these cells affects fibrosis in mouse models of fibrotic ILD. These results will provide new drug targets to prevent disease onset and improve patient outcomes in the future.