Thomas Raffay
Case Western Reserve University, OH·Medicine & Clinical Research
Babies born very early often develop bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), a lasting lung disease with more than 10,000 new US cases a year. It brings wheezing, narrowed airways, a higher risk of death and early chronic lung disease, and current drugs work inconsistently.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Physiology
Pharmacology
- Topics
bronchopulmonary dysplasia
prematurity
neonatal lung disease
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2028
What they work on
- Determine the molecular mechanisms by which GSNO protects the newborn lung, using GSNOR knockout mice exposed to high oxygen as a model of bronchopulmonary dysplasia.
- Compare gene expression in lung tissue from normal and GSNOR knockout mice at the single-nucleus level to find cell types affected by high oxygen.
- Define the role of GSNOR in airway and air-sac lining cells versus myeloid immune cells using Cre/loxP cell-specific knockout mice.
- Test whether drug inhibition of GSNOR or inhaled GSNO during high oxygen exposure reduces airway hyperreactivity, inflammation and lung injury.
More about the research
One contributor is the high oxygen these infants receive, which harms the developing lung. This project asks whether restoring a natural airway-relaxing molecule could prevent or treat the disease.
Why it matters
Premature infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia face lifelong breathing problems with large social and economic costs. Inhaled GSNO and GSNOR inhibitors are already being studied for asthma and cystic fibrosis. If they protect the oxygen-exposed newborn lung, they could become new treatments that ease or prevent BPD breathing problems.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Andrew Dylag
University of Rochester, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Determine how the oxygen-rich newborn lung environment drives recruitment and seeding of lung megakaryocytes, by exposing mice to low-dose hyperoxia at different developmental ages and depleting these cells.
Vladimir Kalinichenko
University of Arizona, AZ·Physiology
Determine why P22-F1 PBAE/PEI/PEG nanoparticles home to lung capillary endothelial cells and no other organ, tracing cell-surface binding, uptake into the cell, escape from internal vesicles, and release of the DNA cargo.
Amir Zeki
University of California-Davis, CA·Pharmacology
Determine whether inhaled Pitavastatin, a statin reformulated for delivery as a nebulized aerosol, acts as a bronchodilator in living rhesus macaques with airway hyperresponsiveness, using a crossover design in an established nonhuman primate asthma model.
The school
Case Western Reserve University: 34 labs on PI Pages, $643M a year on research, 213 research doctorates a year.
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