TGen News

PHOENIX, AZ (October 30, 2024) – Nicholas Banovich, Ph.D., associate professor and division director of Bioinnovation and Genome Sciences at TGen, part of City of Hope, will lead or co-lead three collaborative grants totaling over $22 million, with $8.2 million supporting research at TGen. These grants, awarded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), will support innovative research to uncover the molecular drivers of pulmonary diseases, with the goal of improving prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

The first grant, titled, Spatiotemporal Genomic Regulation of Disease Initiation and Progression in Pulmonary Fibrosis, focuses on mid- to late-stage idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a chronic lung disease characterized by progressive scarring of lung tissue. This scarring reduces lung function over time, causing symptoms such as shortness of breath, persistent cough, and fatigue. In collaboration with Jonathan Kropski, M.D., at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), this project applies advanced single-cell RNA sequencing, spatial transcriptomics, and multi-omic tools to dissect the genetic and molecular mechanisms driving disease progression. These insights will help guide the development of new therapeutic strategies aimed at slowing or halting disease progression in patients.

The second grant, Disease Mechanisms of Early Pulmonary Fibrosis, is a multi-institutional program project, involving teams from the University of Michigan, led by Timothy S. Blackwell, M.D., and VUMC. This program aims to better understand how early-stage abnormalities in the lung develop and progress. The study leverages a unique cohort of lung tissue samples from asymptomatic relatives of patients with familial pulmonary fibrosis. The Banovich Lab will employ spatial transcriptomic profiling to characterize distal lung tissue from this cohort to understand what the earliest molecular changes driving disease are and where they occur. “This study is positioned to give us unprecedented insight into the molecular mechanisms that start this disease process,” said Kropski, one of the Project Leaders. 

The third grant, Unraveling the Molecular Origins of Chronic Parenchymal Lung Diseases, spans the full spectrum of lung disease, from the early childhood condition bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) to adult pulmonary fibrosis. This grant is part of Phase 3 of the LungMap consortium, a multi-center initiative aimed at creating a comprehensive molecular map of the lungs across the lifespan. The project integrates cutting-edge spatial technologies to explore how genetic and environmental factors shape disease progression from childhood to adulthood. By developing high-resolution molecular maps, this work seeks to uncover early intervention points and improve outcomes for patients across different stages of life. “Working with Dr. Banovich has expanded the landscape of possible questions we can ask about lung development and disease. This grant enables us to deploy frontier genomic approaches to discover new potential therapeutic targets in BPD – truly a giant step forward for a chronic lung disease of infancy with implications for lung regeneration across the lifespan,” said VUMC’s Jennifer Sucre, M.D., a co leader of this award.

“This work builds on 7 years of collaboration between my lab at TGen and the Kropski, Sucre, and Blackwell labs at VUMC and UM,” said Banovich. “Receiving NIH funding is an honor and a significant achievement, but what makes these grants particularly valuable is the synergy between them. Each project on its own holds great potential, but by integrating their findings, we can gain deeper insights into the molecular mechanisms that drive the origins and progression of chronic lung disease.”

For further information about TGen’s research initiatives, please visit tgen.org.