Lung diseases are among the leading causes of death worldwide with rising incidence. Understanding how lung stem cells respond to injury and disease is fundamental to advancing regenerative medicine and developing new therapies.
Associate Professor Dost and her team focus on developing and applying primary human lung organoid models to investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying lung regeneration and disease progression. Their goal is to identify new therapeutic approaches that harness endogenous regenerative capacity in currently incurable conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Associate Professor Dost studied Medical Biology in Germany and completed her PhD at Harvard Medical School, where she used organoid models to investigate the transition of lung cells to cancer, supported by a Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds PhD fellowship. During her postdoctoral work at the Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands, she developed an advanced human organoid system to study lung regeneration and disease, supported by a European Respiratory Society RESPIRE4 fellowship.
