Our team of CF scientists and clinician-scientists will study the complex environment of the CF lung by considering each component as a member of a community, and applying the scientific principles of both systems biology and community ecology. The scientific theme for our CF Basic & Translational Research Program, therefore, is “The Systems Ecology of the CF Lung”. We will use a variety of approaches to characterize the changes in activities of each of the cell types that make up the community and in the signals by which they communicate, to identify those changes that are associated with progressive lung disease. We will apply systems biology approaches and computational modeling to understand how these components of the community interact. These approaches will identify new therapeutic routes. We will also design devices that monitor the airways of CF patients for those changes, which will allow CF clinicians to recognize the warning signs of impending pulmonary decline in order to initiate aggressive treatment. We will identify and develop new drugs to manipulate a variety of therapeutic targets in the various components of the airway ecosystem. To this end, we are building a coalition of scientists, clinician-scientists, and engineers who bring new interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the complex environment of the CF lung.

We believe that focusing on the complex environment of the CF lung will lead to new approaches to increase life-expectancy and enhance quality of life in children and adults with this disease.

Although substantial improvements in quality and longevity of life for CF patients have been achieved since the disease was first described, the median predicted age at death remains less than half of that for the non-CF population. What will it take to solve this problem? We need to find new ways to think about CF, new ways to focus on wellness, to turn this “disease” into a “condition”. We will translate breakthroughs in our basic understanding of CF to enable prospective, predictive, personalized, and preventive healthcare for CF, not simply disease care. Our ambitious goal is that ten years from now, we will not have one more child with CF die from this disease

Our team aims to promote interdisciplinary research into the pathogenesis of CF and to translate this new knowledge into therapeutic strategies for this life-shortening disease. The overall strategy to reach this goal centers upon the >600 CF patients cared for within our clinical program. Center investigators will use state-of-the-art approaches to study patient-derived samples, along with novel animal models of CF and CFRD, to identify the changes in airway function with respect to inflammation and redox imbalance that accompany development of CF or CFRD, use experimental systems to test mechanistic hypotheses, and use systems modeling approaches to integrate these results in the context of patient data on disease progression.

The CF research program has grown from a very small start – only three investigators in 2009 – to now including over 60 investigators, spread between Emory University, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Georgia Tech, and the University of Georgia. A full list of team members is available by clicking "Meet Our Investigators" in the navigation menu to the left.