Kayhan Batmanghelich, Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Hariri Institute Junior Faculty Fellow and AIR Affiliate at Boston University, was awarded a $3.1 million competitive renewal R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. With this grant, Batmanghelich will lead transformative research on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) with collaborators from Boston University College of Engineering, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

A new study meticulously sampled different lung regions in people with cystic fibrosis to understand why infections persist after treatment with new drugs called modulators. These drugs are not curative, but help improve symptoms by addressing the underlying physiological flaw in this genetic condition. Unexpectedly, the new findings suggest that lung damage might not be the main cause of infection persistence. It might be possible that the bacteria is adapting in new ways to resist clearance even when the lungs are being treated with the best drugs available.