4th Epithelial Mesenchymal Interactions in Lung Development & Fibrosis Conference

Memo

Lung development is governed by epithelial-mesenchymal interactions. These pathways are recapitulated during injury and repair. This conference will focus on understanding key processes underlying lung development, injury and repair and their dysregulation in the context of aging, environmental exposures in different species, with the hope of better understanding disease development and to discover novel therapeutic approaches. We will highlight emerging concepts in airway and parenchymal epithelial and mesenchymal cell biology such as stem cell and progenitor heterogeneity, and adaptive and maladaptive regenerative mechanisms. The newly minted sessions will also encompass technological advances in single cell and spatial multiomic profiling approaches for dissecting, cellular neighbourhoods, cell-cell communication that contribute to epithelial and mesenchymal cell proliferation, plasticity, cell fate decisions in development, repair, and fibrosis. The focused themes will also discuss our current understanding of how genetic, epigenetics, and metabolic changes rewires cell fates to influence lung development, repair, and diseases; and characterize epithelial-mesenchymal interrelationships that maintain lung homeostasis and orchestrate repair and regeneration. The entire program has been designed to achieve a better understanding of the key clinical research issues and how they relate to basic mechanistic investigation.   Key Sessions Keynote and emerging topics Novel models and technologies to study pulmonary fibrosis Mechanisms of repair in lung disease Pathways regulating lung development and dysregulated/activated in lung fibrosis Aging, fibrosis and degenerative lung diseases Environmental impact on lung diseases Mechanotransduction In lung development and fibrosis Aging and lung fibrosis