DrCharlotte Dean

Dr Charlotte Dean heads the Lung Development and Disease group in the National Heart and Lung Institute (see research page and our external website for details) website: www.lungdevelopmentandrepair.org

The lungs are capable of repair but, in some people lung repair doesn’t happen properly either because of genetic mutations and/or exposure to repeated damaging exposures such as pollution or smoking. There are several common lung diseases where the gas exchange surface of the lungs (alveoli) becomes damaged including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and pneumonia. Also, premature babies often have fewer alveoli than a full-term baby because they have had less time in utero. This can lead to a disease called Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia, which can have lifelong effects on breathing and lung health. At the moment there are no treatments available that can slow down the progress of these diseases or prevent them. We wish to identify novel treatments for these diseases.

Regenerative biology now offers real potential to repair or regrow damaged lungs and we are working at the forefront of this exciting field. Our research aims to transform our understanding of alveolar biology and accelerate the discovery of new regenerative medicine treatments.

Lung slices- ‘mini-lungs’ for discovery and drug screening

Many of our research projects use lung slices (also known as precision-cut lung slices, PCLS) to investigate mechanisms of lung injury and repair. These lung slices are in effect ‘mini-lungs’ as they consist of 3-D lung tissue pieces, containing all resident lung cell types in their natural arrangements and ratios.

Tools

We have also developed new tools to enable us to investigate lung repair and to screen potential regenerative medicine treatments.

Biography

After post-doctoral studies at NYU and the Sloan-Kettering Institute, Dr Dean returned to the UK and was awarded a British Lung Foundation Fellowship to work on lung development and the parallels with lung disease at MRC Harwell.

In 2011 Charlotte moved to Imperial College and established her group at the National Heart and Lung Institute. Charlotte's research focuses on harnessing factors that are required to generate the lungs during development as pro-repair treatments that could in future be used to repair damaged lung tissue.

Charlotte is module lead for the BMB BSc 3rd yr module in Regenerative Medicine. She is also Senior Welfare Tutor for post-graduate research students in her department. In addition, Charlotte is an associate editor at Thorax and a member of the NC3Rs Partnerships and Impact funding panel.