Lung diseases account for significant morbidity and mortality as recently demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Medical professionals and researchers worldwide have been tirelessly working to find ways to diagnose, treat, and protect against lung diseases. To this end, the current research landscape relies on culture dishes and/or animals for experiments but suffers from limitations related to their differences from human lungs. This has highlighted the urgent need for out-of-body models mimicking the human lung to advance the understanding of lung diseases and to develop drugs and vaccines to combat lung diseases.

In his project titled Engineering Out-of-Body Lung Models for Fighting Lung Diseases principle investigator Dr. Xiongbiao (Daniel) Chen from the University of Saskatchewan aims to pursue an interdisciplinary study focused on the development of novel out-of-body lung models. Successful completion of this project will help launch a long-term collaboration to better understand lung disease and inform drug/vaccine development.