# Reverse Engineering the Pulmonary Microvasculature

> **NIH NIH F30** · YALE UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $43,588

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
The global burden of pulmonary disease is immense, with acute lung pathology affecting 1-5 million people
annually and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) the 4th leading cause of death worldwide. The
best treatment for end-stage disease, lung transplantation, has a 10-year survival rate of less than 30%. Our
fundamental understanding of lung cell systems biology, pathological derangements, and tissue homeostasis
is truly limited. To better treat pulmonary disease, there is a need to better understand tissue biology, and a
need to design new therapeutic approaches based on basic principles and regenerative engineering. This
project aims to elucidate basic pathways governing microvascular regulation and homeostasis in the alveolus,
and then apply those mechanisms for regenerative engineering. The proposal is divided into three specific
aims. In the first aim, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) of distal lung will be used to elucidate potential
microvascular-specific growth factor signaling in the developing and mature alveolus. In the second aim, a
putative list of signaling mechanisms will be further refined based on native tissue protein expression and co-
localization with microvasculature. Finally, in the third aim, a limited set of identified growth factors will be
delivered over time to an in vitro organotypic model to assess their effect on microvascular development and
function. The project is motivated by the overarching hypothesis that understanding growth factoring signaling
at the tissue level will not only aid in the understanding of pulmonary development and pathology, but will
strongly inform how to “reverse-engineer” pulmonary vascular tissues for regenerative medicine.
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## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10232113
- **Project number:** 5F30HL143906-03
- **Recipient organization:** YALE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Micha Sam Brickman Raredon
- **Activity code:** F30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $43,588
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-09-01 → 2022-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10232113

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10232113, Reverse Engineering the Pulmonary Microvasculature (5F30HL143906-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10232113. Licensed CC0.

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