Rising Star Faculty – Dr. Hadi Nia

Probing functioning lung at the cellular resolution in health and disease

ABSTRACT:

The lung, continuously exposed to chemical, mechanical, biological, and immunological stresses, is the site of many pathophysiologies due to air-borne pathogens, pollutants, and primary and metastatic cancers. The majority of our understanding of pulmonary diseases relies on fixed/frozen specimens, which only provide a snapshot of the lung’s pathophysiology, and hence incapable of capturing the dynamic and early stage events in disease progression and response to therapy. The lack of technologies to probe the lung cellular dynamics with high spatial and temporal resolutions is a major obstacle underlying our limited understanding of the dynamic events in early stages of pulmonary diseases. To study these dynamic events, we have developed a transformative platform to mechanistically probe lung (patho)physiology in real-time and at the cellular resolution. This platform, termed LungEx, includes the long-term ex vivo maintenance of mouse and human lungs in near-physiological conditions that is equipped with a novel transparent ribcage, termed “crystal” ribcage, enabling real-time optical microscopy. I will present the results of an ongoing work that demonstrate the visualization of lung pathophysiologies such as lung metastasis and pulmonary fibrosis in real-time, at the cellular resolution, and over nearly the entire surface of the lung while the respiratory/circulatory functions are fully preserved. I will conclude by presenting the ongoing and future applications of LungEx on establishing causal links between the mechanical and biological factors in lung immunity, pulmonary lymphatics, and ventilation-induced injuries.

NARRATIVE BIOSKETCH:

Hadi T. Nia is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University. Nia’s research includes developing and integrating novel models and tools at the interface of physical sciences and biology to better understand the role of mechanobology in health and disease. His major research interests include the mechanobiology and mechano-immunity at the tumor-host interface in key organs such as lung and brain.