Chitaru Kurihara
Northwestern University, IL·Medicine & Clinical Research
For many people with end-stage lung disease, a lung transplant is the only option. Yet lung transplant survival is the worst among solid organs: about 80% of patients are alive at one year and only 50% at five years.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Physiology
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
lung transplantation
chronic lung allograft dysfunction
primary graft dysfunction
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Nov 2029
What they work on
- Determine whether integrated stress response activation of ATF4, a stress-induced gene regulator, is necessary for impaired alveolar epithelial repair after lung transplantation, using mouse transplant models.
- Test whether reducing primary graft dysfunction by targeting donor-derived non-classical monocytes, immune cells that recruit neutrophils into the new lung, lessens the severity of chronic lung allograft dysfunction.
- Determine whether activation of the integrated stress response in airway and alveolar epithelium predisposes patients to early CLAD, using multi-omic analysis of samples collected longitudinally after lung transplant.
More about the research
Two problems drive this. Primary graft dysfunction (PGD) is early injury to the new lung caused when blood flow returns after the organ was stored. Chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD) is later scarring of the transplanted lung and the leading cause of late death. Patients with PGD are more likely to develop CLAD, but the molecular link is unknown.
Why it matters
Lung transplant recipients often lose their new lungs to chronic allograft dysfunction and fibrosis. This work aims to credential drug targets that could be given at the time of transplant: agents the lab has shown reduce early graft injury may also calm stress pathways in the cells lining the lung and lower the long-term risk of CLAD, which could extend survival for transplant patients.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Laurie Snyder
Duke University, NC·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether specific pretransplant clinical characteristics predict failure to achieve a lung transplant textbook outcome, defined as freedom from primary graft dysfunction, acute lung allograft dysfunction, renal failure and infection.
Seunghye Han
Northwestern University, IL·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether a raised mitochondrial NADH/NAD+ ratio and the protein DELE1 are needed to activate the integrated stress response that blocks AT2-to-AT1 lung cell maturation when mitochondrial complex I is lost.
Jonathan Singer
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Determine how sarcopenic obesity, sarcopenia and high body fat affect perioperative complications and patient-reported outcomes at 6 months in 803 lung transplant candidates, with body composition measured by bioelectrical impedance analysis.
The school
Northwestern University: 71 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 536 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.