Picture: Penn State
Influenza infects millions of people worldwide every year. It often becomes critical when bacteria additionally colonize the lungs and the illness progresses to pneumonia or other complications. Which pathogen combinations increase risk and which immune responses become dysregulated is still only partially understood, despite many animal and cell-culture studies.
A team led by microbiologist Julia Oh at the Duke School of Medicine and bioprinting researcher Ibrahim Ozbolat at Penn State University aims to address this gap with a 3D-printed lung model. According to those involved, the U.S. National Institutes of Health is providing USD 3.2 million for the four-year project. The central question is how different bacterial strains interact with influenza virus in human lung tissue and why disease courses vary so strongly depending on the microbiome.
“Researchers have long studied the flu virus’s effects on the lungs, but we don’t know how adding diverse bacterial strains changes the outcome,” said Oh, the project leader. “The respiratory microbiome varies widely between people, and we’ve lacked models that reflect that complexity.”
Ozbolat’s lab is providing a bioprinted tissue platform built from stem cell–derived lung cells. The mini-tissues can be ventilated, so mechanical loading and gas-exchange conditions are closer to physiology than in static cultures.
“The precision of bioprinting lets us recreate miniature, breathing lung sacs that behave like native tissue,” Ozbolat said. “This is the first time a dynamic 3D lung model will be used to study virus–bacteria interactions.”
Multi-omics analyses and high-resolution imaging are intended to reveal both harmful synergies and potential immunological “pre-activations.”
In the long term, the platform could help evaluate vaccine and therapeutic candidates more specifically and tackle respiratory research questions with fewer animal experiments. Partner institutions also include The Jackson Laboratory and Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
