Organ fibrosis (scarring) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, and as yet there are no effective anti-fibrotic treatments. My lab is interested in the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive organ fibrosis, and also the molecular pathways which are responsible for efficient wound healing and healthy tissue regeneration following injury. By understanding more about how organs scar, heal and regenerate we hope to develop new treatments for patients with organ fibrosis.
Single-cell genomics approaches are transforming our understanding of disease pathogenesis, allowing interrogation of homeostatic and pathogenic cell populations at unprecedented resolution, and adding an illuminating dimension to transcriptomic information relative to traditional methods that profile bulk cell populations. The single cell genomics field has developed rapidly over the last few years, chiefly because these approaches allow powerful, unbiased exploration of cell states and types at single-cell resolution, resulting in unexpected novel insights into tissue biology and disease mechanisms.
The convergence of these multi-modal single-cell technologies represent a remarkable opportunity to decode the molecular mechanisms regulating human tissue fibrosis and regeneration at single cell resolution, which we hope will inform and accelerate the development of effective new therapies for patients with fibrotic diseases.