Elizabeth DiRenzo
Stanford University, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
The larynx, or voice box, handles breathing, coughing, swallowing and, in humans, speech, and in doing so meets roughly 25 million inhaled insults a day. Its first line of defense is the epithelium, the thin sheet of cells covering its surface, which continually renews itself.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biology
Physiology
- Topics
larynx
vocal folds
laryngeal epithelium
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2027
What they work on
- Characterize the properties of laryngeal epithelial basal cells, the presumed progenitors of the vocal fold lining, in normal mice using differentiated epithelium, primary culture and three-dimensional tissue-like culture systems.
- Test how cigarette smoke alters basal cell biology and drives epithelial remodeling, using smoke exposure in live mice alongside in vitro smoke-exposure models.
- Determine whether mouse findings translate to people by examining basal cell biology in laryngeal specimens from patients with Reinke's edema, a common smoke-induced vocal fold disease.
- Test the hypothesis that basal cells are required for formation and maintenance of normal laryngeal epithelium, linking changes in their behavior to loss of barrier function and disease development.
More about the research
Inhaled irritants, especially cigarette smoke, change the makeup and organization of this layer, a process called remodeling, which weakens the barrier and sets the stage for disease. Very little is known about the cells that drive this renewal, which is a major obstacle to treating smoke-damaged vocal folds. This project asks what those cells do normally and how smoke changes them.
Why it matters
Laryngeal disease is common and costly, affecting voice, breathing and swallowing. By defining how basal progenitor cells maintain the vocal fold lining and how cigarette smoke derails them, this work could reveal biological pathways to target with drugs that prevent or treat smoking-related voice disorders, including Reinke's edema, for which current options are limited.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Bernard Rousseau
Saint Louis University, MO·Medicine & Clinical Research
Quantify how methylprednisolone, a glucocorticoid steroid drug, changes the permeability of the vocal fold epithelial barrier, using in vitro experiments.
Neel Bhatt
University of Washington, WA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Quantify neuromuscular changes in the aging larynx of a rat model using laryngeal evoked response studies, which record the compound motor action potential (CMAP) after stimulating the recurrent laryngeal nerve.
Donald O Freytes
North Carolina State University, NC·Biomedical Engineering
Identify the molecules in a vocal fold lamina propria extract (VFLPx) that reduce scarring and kill microbes, using proteomic analysis, which profiles all proteins present, and targeted assays.
The school
Stanford University: 87 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 739 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.