Welcome to the Boyd Lab!
About the Lab
Do you wonder why some people barely have any symptoms after getting infected with a respiratory virus, while others get really sick? We do too. Every day.
Respiratory viral infections in humans can result in a wide spectrum of disease ranging from infections without any symptoms to cases with severe complications, such as acute respiratory distress syndrome. For cases of severe respiratory viral infection, tissue damage caused by an individual’s own immune response, often referred to as immunopathology, is the primary driver of lung disease. A host must strike a careful balance between mounting an immune response to clear the infection (resistance) and limiting the amount of collateral damage to the lung tissue to maintain its function (tolerance).
Despite decades of research, there still are not any specific therapeutic drugs that are effective at limiting or reversing severe respiratory viral disease. We want to understand the specific molecular and cellular pathways that are important for driving severe disease so that we can someday develop new therapeutic drugs to improve disease outcomes.
Defining these molecular and cellular pathways is important for understanding not only acute lung disease, while there is active viral replication, but also for understanding post-viral disease or chronic, long-term consequences of a respiratory viral infection for respiratory health.
Our Research
Our research focuses on understanding the role that lung fibroblasts play in determining the severity of both acute inflammation and chronic lung disease following a respiratory viral infection. Fibroblasts are well known for their ability to generate and modify the extracellular matrix during tissue development and repair. Over the last several years, our work has demonstrated that, following severe respiratory viral infection, lung fibroblasts also play an important role in coordinating immune responses, and they acquire diverse activation states that together determine the severity of disease.
Fibroblasts and their diverse activities are potential therapeutic targets to achieve a balance between viral clearance and maintenance of lung function to improve health outcomes for people that are susceptible to severe respiratory disease.
Sources of Support
Our lab is generously supported by the following funding agencies:
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
Johns Hopkins Center for Excellence in Influenza Research and Response (JH-CEIRR)
University of California Office of the President - Cancer Research Coordinating Committee (CRCC)