Through a joint UNC School of Medicine–NC State research project shows how to harvest lung stem cells non–invasively and then multiply healthy cells – a potential powerful therapy against inflammatory lung conditions.

A team of scientists from the UNC School of Medicine and North Carolina State University (NCSU) has developed promising research towards a possible stem cell treatment for several lung conditions, such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and cystic fibrosis.

In the journal Respiratory Research, the scientists demonstrated that they could harvest lung stem cells from people using a relatively non–invasive, doctor’s–office technique. They were then able to multiply the harvested lung cells in the lab to yield enough cells sufficient for human therapy.

In a second study, published in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine, the team showed that in rodents they could use the same type of lung cell to successfully treat a model of IPF – a chronic, irreversible, and ultimately fatal disease characterized by a progressive decline in lung function.

The researchers have been in discussions with the FDA and are preparing an application for an initial clinical trial in patients with IPF.

“This is the first time anyone has generated potentially therapeutic lung stem cells from minimally invasive biopsy specimens,” said co–senior author of both papers Jason Lobo, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at UNC and medical director of lung transplant and interstitial lung disease. Co–senior author Ke Cheng, PhD, an associate professor in NCSU’s Department of Molecular Biomedical Sciences and the UNC/NCSU Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, said, “We think the properties of these cells make them potentially therapeutic for a wide range of lung fibrosis diseases.”