Janna Nawroth Lab

Our group’s primary research interest is to understand the mechanobiology of the airway epithelium. We propose that chronic airway diseases, such asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), are exacerbated and perpetuated by a change in the mechanical environment of the airways that promotes disease progression and lowers defenses to irritants and pathogens. To investigate this hypothesis, we study how normal and abnormal mechanical forces shape epithelial differentiation and remodeling on genetic and functional levels, and how the resulting properties of extracellular matrix, tissue architecture, and mucus affect mucociliary clearance, the primary mechanical defense of the airways.  We combine 3 different approaches to study these mechanisms at different spatial scales:

1. We develop Airway-on-a-Chip models and tissue engineering techniques that allow us to build custom-designed airway epithelia, study the role of other cell types, and apply well-controlled mechanical stimuli
2. We exploit advanced imaging and analysis tools to record structure, kinematics, and transport phenomena of living tissues at multiple spatial and temporal scales
3. We leverage other model systems, including physics-based in silico models and select invertebrate animal models, to understand fundamental structure-function relationships between ciliated tissue designs and resulting mechanical properties and fluid transport functions.