Melanie Königshoff, MD, PhD, ATSF, FERS

  • Professor of Medicine and the Associate Chief of Research within the Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine Division

Research Interests

Our research focuses on deciphering mechanisms involved in lung repair and regeneration, with the aim to identify novel therapeutic targets relevant for age-related chronic lung diseases, such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Our translational research program focuses on the comprehensive characterization of primary lung epithelial (stem) cells from experimental models and human tissue samples from patients with chronic lung disease. we aim to identify and investigate target signaling pathways that impact cellular mechanisms we identified the developmental WNT signaling pathway as a potent contributor to impaired lung repair and epithelial cell reprogramming, which is amenable to therapy and have further characterized features of epithelial cell reprogramming, such as cellular senescence. We further pioneered and apply patient-derived 3D Lung Tissue Cultures that allow to further validate and test potential novel drugs in an individualized fashion.

Program Website