Breathe : Clinics meets Genomics - Oct17th, 2023 - 12th Academy 4 Research Webinar

The 17th of October 2023 at 12 pm (noon), via Zoom, took place the 12th session of the Academy 4 research webinar entitled "BREATHE : CLINICS MEETS GENOMICS".

Talk 1:

"Ongoing research and collaborations towards the construction of the RespirERA IHU: What ambitions for our teams within this project?"

By Professor Sylvie Leroy, Pulmonologist,
Member of the RespirERA IHU, involved in the training, fundamental and clinical research work packages.
Head of the Centre for Rare Lung Diseases and Cystic Fibrosis at the Nice University Centre.
Fundamental and translational research theme: The respiratory epithelium in chronic respiratory diseases, in association with the IPMC teams (Pascal BARBRY and Bernard MARI).
Participation in the Human Cell Atlas through the standardisation of sampling procedures, their relevance to the application of new technologies and compliance with ethical principles in the collection of human samples in interstitial lung diseases, COPD, severe asthma, bronchiectasis and healthy control subjects.
 

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Talk 2:
 

"Building single-cell atlases of the human lung in health and respiratory diseases"

by Laure-Emmanuelle ZARAGOSI, CR CNRS IPMC
Team Physiological Genomics of the Eukaryotes
660 route des lucioles SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS 06560 VALBONNE
IPMC website : https://www.ipmc.cnrs.fr/cgi-bin/site.cgi

Abstract: 
The defence function of the lung airway epithelium results from homeostasis of a complex cellular ecosystem which can be altered in chronic respiratory diseases. We have used single-cell RNA profiling to investigate the extent of these modifications in terms of cell compositions and differential gene expression at different levels of the lung airways.
Our initial single-cell atlas of the human healthy airways was established in young healthy adults and was then integrated in a larger Human Lung Cell Atlas (HLCA) which combines 49 datasets of the human lung into a single atlas spanning over 2.4 million cells from 486 individuals. The HLCA captures the cellular diversity of the human lung by describing the characteristics of 62 distinct cell types including rare cell types. We also directly compared patients suffering from early stages of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) with healthy age-matched volunteers. This new dataset of 119 samples was assembled after collecting cells by brushings or biopsies from the nose to the 6th division of the airways and results in the first COPD airway cell atlas.
The benefits of integrating healthy and disease single-cell atlas in larger resources leads to a more robust characterization and better recovery of cell types and states. This establishes the global HLCA as a valuable resource for future investigations and defines a general computational strategy transferrable to the analysis of other pathological samples.

Biography:
Laure-Emmanuelle ZARAGOSI is a senior scientist in cellular and molecular biology focussing on the regeneration of the human airway epithelium and an active member of the Human Cell Atlas Lung biological network. She has identified new molecular mechanisms operating during the regeneration of the airway epithelium and has characterized the variability of cell composition in the airways of healthy donors. These works resulted in the establishment of the first airway cellular atlas from healthy donor biopsies by single-cell sequencing. The data is now part of the Human Cell Atlas and is used by many groups around the world as a reference.
 

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ORGANIZERS: 

Academy of Excellence 4 "Complexity & Diversity of the Living Systems"
Innovation Centre for Entrepreneurship of Université Côte d'Azur ICE
Graduate School and Research LIFE - Life and Health Sciences
Graduate School and Research HEALTHY - Health Science Ecosystems

PARTNERS

Academy of Excellence 5 "Human Societies, Ideas and Environments"
Institute NeuroMod - Cognitive Systems, Normality and Pathology of the Human Brain and Computational Neurosciences
Labex SIGNALIFE - Network for Innovation on Signal Transduction Pathways in Life Sciences