The long-term goal of our pulmonary research program is to better understand mechanisms that contribute to development and progression of parenchymal lung disease thereby enabling us to develop novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.

Robust homeostatic mechanisms preserve human lung health from early age through adult years, however maturity can be associated with the development of parenchymal lung diseases. Our research studies focus on Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), disorders commonly observed in aging males with a prior history of tobacco exposure. Our laboratory employs cutting edge genomic technologies and animal models to determine how select molecular derangements contribute to development and progression of parenchymal lung disease associated with established risk factors including smoking, aging, gender and the metabolic syndrome (Morse D, Rosas IO. Tobacco smoke-induced lung fibrosis and emphysema. Annu Rev Physiol. 2014; 76:493-513).

Our clinical research studies have shown that subclinical pulmonary fibrosis can be detected in at-risk populations including families affected with pulmonary fibrosis, smokers and patients affected with rheumatoid arthritis (Doyle TJ, Hunninghake GM, Rosas IO. Subclinical interstitial lung disease: why you should care. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2012 Jun 1; 185(11):1147-53). These studies are transformative as they provide critical evidence that prevention is feasible in common parenchymal lung diseases associated with high morbidity and mortality (Rosas IO, Dellaripa PF, Lederer DJ et al. Interstitial lung disease: NHLBI Workshop on the Primary Prevention of Chronic Lung Diseases. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2014 Apr; 11 Suppl 3:S169-77).