Describing the Lung in Unprecedented Detail

March 2020

Gloria Pryhuber, M.D., professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center, along with several URMC, national, and international, collaborators,  received renewed funding to continue research as part of the NIH-sponsored Lung Development Molecular Atlas Program (LungMAP) and the Human BioMolecular Atlas Program (HuBMAP) collaboratives.

Pryhuber’s research program has received national recognition for its unique and innovative abilities to study fundamental processes in human lung growth and maturation. Her lab created the BioRepository for Investigation of Diseases of the Lung (BRINDL) which now contains more than 250 human lung sets, with 50 normal by history and histopathology and more than 70 with a specified disease, spanning mid-late gestation to adult age. Working with the United States Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), the lab accepted donated organs when they cannot be placed for transplantation, and respectfully preserves and distributes lung samples — representing late gestation through early adulthood to support molecular, temporal and spatial characterization of functionally and anatomically defined cell types — to many research communities locally and nationally.

With the rapid development of technologies allowing comprehensive analysis, single-cell and single-nuclei gene expression, DNA chromatin conformation, proteomes and lipidomes, the potential discoveries supported by the BRINDL repository are nearly limitless.  Collaborating Pediatric Pathologists Gail Deutsch. M.D., of the Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Philip J. Katzman, M.D., of URMC, evaluate each sample for evidence of disease and structural integrity.  With the excellent support of the URMC Genomics Research Core, Flow Cytometry Core, and CTSI Informatics, the lab has collaborated to generate large datasets of whole tissue, single cell and single nuclear, gene and protein expression by cell type and pediatric age.

Pryhuber has also recently co-edited a text book, "Updates on Neonatal Chronic Lung Disease", a valuable resource for Neonatologists and Fellows in training, with chapters written by experts in histopathology, diagnosis, mechanisms, nutritional and ventilatory management of bronchopulmonary dysplasia, children’s interstitial lung diseases (chILD) and their neurologic and inflammatory complications.