About
OUR Research
Vision
Strategy
Our vision is that our research directly or indirectly benefits patients with lung diseases. Regenerative medicine holds promise for many patients with lung disease, and is therefore a central theme in our research. Our expertise is mainly on COPD/emphysema, the role of respiratory infections in chronic lung disease and more recently also interstitial lung disease and lung cancer. The latter two are in development, in line with changes in the clinical focus of our department.
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Advancing our understanding of lung health and disease is instrumental to achieve this vision. To this end, we use patient- and disease-relevant culture models and combine these with detailed analysis of patient samples, rather than animal models.
Bridging fundamental and clinical research is essential to ultimately achieve benefit for patients, which is directly in line with our research vision.
To realize our research vision, we use human samples and human cell culture models to facilitate translation of results from laboratory research to the clinic. Building on our expertise, we continuously work on the development and improvement of advanced cell culture models that optimally reflect human lung tissue in health and disease, and use state of the art tools to study such models as well as patient samples.
A close interaction between the clinical team and the laboratory team is an active focus, and includes involvement of researchers with a clinical expertise in the laboratory team, both at the PhD and staff level and with our (international) collaborators
Furthermore, education and training of biomedical scientists are an essential part of our strategy to contribute to improvements in health care.