Research Description

The following Goals are designed to achieve the overarching Strategic Goal to construct a rich multiscale atlas of human alveolar development and to readily share the resulting materials with other research centers in the UO1 and with the broad research community.

Goal 1. Make a digital map of alveolar development over time in vivo and in tissue pieces using novel micro- CT (uCT), micro MRI (uMRI) and Phase contrast X-ray (PCX) technology validated in mice and then in human lung tissue.

Goal 2. Make a digital map of spatiotemporal gene expression during alveolar development over time using newly modified high throughput multiplex ISH with novel "slice and dice", Vibra-SSIM confocal technology, in mouse and human lung tissue.

Goal 3. Make a digital map of the fine structure of alveolar matrix during development in mouse and human tissue.

Goal 4. Develop image-processing technology to meld digital multiscale images of alveolar structure with cell autonomous gene expression with extracellular matrix protein configuration into a readily navigable, annotated novel data resource for the scientific community.

SOPs will be developed and process driven milestones will be set up to ensure deliverability and return on this significant scientific investment. Drs. Warburton, Shi and Driscoll are expert alveolar biologists while Drs. Fraser, Moats and Lansford are expert imaging scientists who are adept at recording, registering and assembling digital, multiscale combinatorial maps of organ development in Drosophila and Mouse and have invented many novel and highly innovative techniques to do so. We propose to translate our novel concepts on alveolar development derived in mice rapidly to studies in vivo in humans.