# Development of Novel Regenerative Cell Therapies for Lung Diseases using AI-guided Chemical Reprogramming of Human Cells

> **NIH NIH R43** · CELLFORMA, INC · 2024 · $306,239

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
IPF is a terminal lung disease causing 40,000 deaths in the US each year, with a life expectancy of three to five
years, and characterized by the formation of sporadic patches of fibrotic tissue scarring resulting in inevitable
lung failure. Currently, there are only two palliative treatments available and lung transplant is a rare solution
only 0.02% of patients can access. There is a growing interest in cell replacement therapy (CeRT) to restore
organ function. Cellforma founders have demonstrated that CeRT is feasible and showed efficacy in an IPF
mouse model. However, a scalable and cost-effective way to acquire the cells needed for IPF CeRT in patients
is currently not yet achieved. Chemical reprogramming of somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells
(iPSCs) has recently been demonstrated but generating the IPF-relevant human lung cell types required has not
been achieved. Cellforma is developing a data-driven, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) platform to
identify scalable and cost-effective chemical strategies to reprogram easy-to-acquire cells, such as human
dermal fibroblasts (HDFs) from the skin, into hard or impossible-to-acquire lung cells. The company's graph-
based AI/ML examines the complexity of cell behavior using chemical perturbation data to produce
“reprogramming maps” that allow the generation of the desired cell types, faster protocol discovery times
compared to current trial-and-error approaches, and without genetic engineering, viral vectors, or expensive
growth factors. Cellforma will develop a mixture of reprogrammed human lung epithelial progenitor and
supporting cells as a curative, first-in-class, CeRT for IPF patients. For this SBIR Phase I AIM 1 is to develop
gene regulatory and chemical graph-based AI/ML to identify HDF-to-lung chemical reprogramming strategies.
AIM 2 is to generate IPF-relevant lung cell types and experimentally assess their stability and functionality. HDFs
or iPSCs will be reprogrammed into the desired lung AT2, and stromal fibroblast (SF) cell types. Cellforma aims
to demonstrate that chemical reprogramming of HDFs to these relevant cells types can be performed at
efficiencies higher than current standards. At the end of Phase I, Cellforma is expected to have established
proprietary AI/ML to identify chemical protocols to transform HDFs into the lung AT2, and SFs required for CeRT
in IPF patients with experimental validation of successful chemical cell reprogramming.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10913890
- **Project number:** 1R43HL172322-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** CELLFORMA, INC
- **Principal Investigator:** Jaldert Hugo Rigobert Ietswaart
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $306,239
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-04-15 → 2025-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10913890

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10913890, Development of Novel Regenerative Cell Therapies for Lung Diseases using AI-guided Chemical Reprogramming of Human Cells (1R43HL172322-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10913890. Licensed CC0.

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