Project description
Lung resilience mechanisms in particularly polluted environments
Air pollution, intensified by heatwaves and wildfires, primarily affects the lungs, sometimes causing life-threatening damage that is resistant to standard treatments. The ERC-funded KINTSUGI project will explore the body’s natural lung resilience to better understand how respiratory health is maintained. Focusing on human adaptation to particulate pollution and resilience seen in smokers, the project will examine the role of the airway submucosal gland (SMG), essential for mucus secretion and antimicrobial defence. Researchers will analyse clinical samples and develop 3D in vitro models to study lung responses to pollutants. Mathematical modelling will further explore the complex interactions within the SMG, aiming to reveal how the lungs withstand environmental stressors and maintain function.
Objective
"Air pollution, exacerbated by heatwaves and wildfires, affects primarily the lungs, leading to potentially life-threatening effects eluding conventional treatments. In response, KINTSUGI adopts a new perspective by exploring lung resilience mechanisms, to understand how respiratory health is maintained in most individuals: drawing on evidence from both a broad evolutionary standpoint, where humans have evolved in environments exposed to particles and proofs of lung resilience observed particularly in smokers, it seeks to redefine the paradigm of investigating lung response to particulate pollution.
For that, KINTSUGI focuses on the airway submucosal gland (SMG), an ectodermal appendage lining the airways, renowned for its unique properties in mucus secretion, antimicrobial activity and a potential niche for proximal airway stem cells. The hypothesis posits the airway SMG as a crucial signalling hub, orchestrating responses to external perturbations to ensure proximal lung resilience. Using dissected clinical samples of SMG, it aims to unravel cell interactions intricacies within this niche, ultimately generating a ""SMG-related resilience signature"". Additionally, 3D in vitro models replicating the in vivo architecture and function of airway SMGs will be established for the study of mucociliary clearance, antimicrobial activity, and regeneration studies under both homeostatic conditions and particles exposure. KINTSUGI further integrates probabilistic mathematical modelling, considering microscopic interaction rules within the SMG, to elucidate macroscopic behaviours underlying lung resilience at different time scales.
KINTSUGI anticipates impacting broader scientific communities, as such health, biology, and evolution, by uncovering fundamental insights into the mechanisms governing resilience. The impact on health and its potential to resonate across diverse scientific disciplines positions KINTSUGI as a ground-breaking initiative with far-reaching implications."
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) ERC-2024-COG
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33000 Bordeaux
France
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