PNNL

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) notified PNNL researcher Charles Ansong this month that he will continue leading one of four national research centers as part of the Molecular Atlas of Lung Development Program, or LungMAP. Supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of NIH, LungMAP heads into its second phase, expanding lung development research to early adulthood.

The first phase, which started in 2014, generated foundational data from developing mouse and human lungs, created a web portal for public data sharing, and established a repository of human lung tissues.

In phase two, researchers will continue to generate molecular profiling data of normal human lung development into early adulthood (up to 25 years old), as well as abnormal lung development in selected neonatal and pediatric rare lung diseases.

“This program has occupied the better part of my time the last few years,” said Ansong. “I’m thrilled that NIH and others see the value in what we’ve done thus far and I’m looking forward to seeing our knowledge grow in this next phase.”

The overall objective of the LungMAP is to better understand human lung development by building an open- access reference resource of a comprehensive, dynamic, 3-D molecular atlas of the late-stage developing human lung with data and reagents available to the research community.