Martina Gentzsch
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Medicine & Clinical Research
Cystic fibrosis (CF) is an inherited disease that affects the lungs, pancreas, and digestive (gastrointestinal, GI) tract. It is caused by defects in CFTR, a protein that moves salt and water across the cells lining these organs.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Physiology
Pharmacology
- Topics
cystic fibrosis
airway epithelium
gastrointestinal tract
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2030
What they work on
- Provide lab-grown cell models and mouse and rabbit models of cystic fibrosis to study how defects in CFTR, the salt-and-water channel protein, cause disease, and to test new drug targets and treatments.
- Coordinate core services that supply primary human airway and gut cells, mucus biochemistry and biophysics measurements, and clinical specimens to investigators developing CF therapies.
- Support early-career and newly recruited investigators through pilot and feasibility awards that bring new expertise to cystic fibrosis research.
More about the research
The long-term goal of this center is a whole-body, or "systemic", cure for CF. Developing therapies for that goal requires shared tools: reliable lab and animal tests of drug candidates, supplies of the cells that line the airways and gut (epithelial cells), methods for studying mucus, and access to patient samples and clinical expertise.
Why it matters
People with cystic fibrosis suffer lung, pancreatic, and digestive complications. By supplying cell and animal models, mucus measurements, and patient specimens, the center aims to speed the development and testing of new CF therapies for both airway and GI disease. Better treatments developed this way could improve patients' health and quality of life.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Matthias Salathe
University of Kansas, KS·Physiology
Test whether high glucose, acting through the RAGE receptor, reduces BK potassium channel activity and drains airway surface liquid in cystic fibrosis bronchial epithelial cells grown in the lab.
Jayakar Nayak
Stanford University, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Identify which biomaterial platform, a scaffold that carries cells, best supports transplanting and engrafting human airway basal stem cells moved from culture into living airway tissue.
Lucas Hoffman
University of Washington, WA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Test whether highly effective CFTR modulator therapy changes the gut microbiome and fecal metabolites, including bile acids, of people with cystic fibrosis, using stool samples and clinical data from two national observational studies.
The school
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: 72 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 523 research doctorates a year.
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