Pathophysiology of the human lung alveolus

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Chairs: R. Villenave (Boston, United States of America), P. Hiemstra (Leiden, Netherlands)
Aims: The alveolus is the respiratory tissue that is located in the distal part of the airways. Numerous acute and chronic diseases associate with marked changes in the alveoli. Until recently, it was not possible to generate in vitro models of alveoli from primary or pluripotent stem cells. This significantly delayed our understanding of the biology of the lung alveolar epithelium. However, recent developments in tissue modelling have greatly advanced research on the development of the alveolar epithelium and its biology in health and disease, including pathologies of the distal airways such as acute lung injury, infections, emphysema, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, surfactant dysfunction and fibrosis. This session will provide attendees with an opportunity to learn about and discuss the latest information regarding the development of the human lung alveolus and the role of mesenchymal-epithelial cell interactions in this process, the in vitro modelling of the human lung alveolar epithelium using induced pluripotent stem cells and the regeneration of the lung alveolus.

The development of the human lung alveolus M. Nikolic (Cambridge (Cambridgeshire), United Kingdom)
Disrupted alveolar repair in COPD: lessons from patient studies and models systems M. Konigshoff (Denver, United States of America)
Using induced pluripotent stem cells to model the human lung alveolar epithelium A. Jacob (Boston, United States of America)
The regeneration of the lung alveolus W. Zacharias (United States of America)