Description
Acute and chronic lung diseases are leading causes of morbidity, mortality, and health care expenditures. Innovative approaches for therapies are urgently needed. Increasingly, patients who suffer from chronic lung diseases are seeking stem cell therapies outside the U.S. due to limited opportunities to participate in clinical studies of stem cells in the U.S. The current NHLBI portfolio on lung stem and progenitor cells has focused primarily on basic research to build fundamental knowledge of the role of stem/progenitor cells in lung disease and injury/repair. However, clinical application of cell therapy for lung diseases will require a more focused approach that coordinates basic research with translational research to facilitate cell-based clinical trials.
Therefore, the NHLBI convened a Cell Therapy for Lung Diseases working group on November 13-14, 2012 to make recommendations for future research directions. The workshop brought together investigators who study basic mechanisms including cell therapy in preclinical models of lung injury/disease along with clinical trial experts in cell therapy for cardiovascular indications and experts from NHLBI’s Production Assistance for Cell Therapy (PACT) program.
The overall objective was to discuss the current status of basic investigations in lung cell therapy, identify the scientific gaps in current knowledge regarding cell therapy in the treatment of lung diseases, and develop recommendations to the NHLBI and the research community on scientific priorities that would facilitate high quality, rigorous first-in-human trials of lung cell therapy.