Christiane Dammann

Research/Areas of Interest

At present, I am not accepting graduate students. I maintain an active role in teaching and mentoring in the CMDB program.

Lung development is a finely tuned arrangement of biological events that involves the regulation of many signaling pathways that interact to regulate gene expression. Disturbance in these events can interfere with lung morphogenesis and result in incorrect differentiation of pulmonary cells, leading to lung diseases. Our group has shown that NRG1., a growth factor, endogenously released from the mature fetal lung fibroblast, stimulates the onset of fetal surfactant synthesis. NRG1. signals its effect through the ErbB4 receptor. ErbB4 signaling is also critical for the development of Type II cells in the fetal lung. We are interested in understanding this signaling process more fully and its role in fetal lung development with a long term goal of developing strategies to prevent bronchopulmonary dysplasia in preterm infants.