The Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) Cell Atlas

www.ipfcellatlas.com 

Funding from Three Lakes Foundation was instrumental in the generation of the IPF Cell Atlas.   The IPF Cell Atlas is a collaborative open-source resource that enables users to explore several single-cell RNA sequencing datasets from IPF tissue in an easy-to-use format.  The atlas contains data from hundreds of thousands of cells from healthy and diseased lungs.  The IPF Cell Atlas has had a profound impact on IPF research by exposing the disease's cellular landscape and accelerating the discovery of novel therapeutic targets. The data is available on an easy-to-use web portal for public exploration. 

The IPF Cell Atlas and the lung endothelial cell atlas can be found at LungEndothelialCellAtlas.com

The atlas has enabled the identification and characterization of specific cell populations driving the disease process, including aberrant basaloid cells, profibrotic macrophages, and an expanded population of vascular endothelial cells that are normally restricted to the airways but are found in the lung parenchyma of IPF patients.  The IPF Cell Atlas is also used heavily to identify biomarkers and validate potential targets.  It is frequently referenced in presentations and according to one pharmaceutical executive “we use it almost every day”.

The Yale team was led by Naftali Kaminski, MD, who is Professor of Internal Medicine and Chief of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, at Yale School of Medicine. Ivan O. Rosas, MD, led the Baylor team. Dr. Rosas is Professor of Medicine and Section Chief at Baylor College of Medicine. Results of the study can be found in multiple publications, including:

• “The Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis Cell Atlas” published in the American Journal of Physiology.  Reference
  

•  “Integrated Single-Cell Atlas of Endothelial Cells of the Human Lung” published in Circulation. Reference
  

• “Single-cell RNA-seq reveals ectopic and aberrant lung-resident cell populations in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis” published in Sci. Adv.  Reference
  

• “Single-Cell Profiling Reveals Immune Aberrations in Progressive Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis” published in Am. J. Resp. and Crit. Care Med. Reference