To better understand lung disease in Influenza and COVID-19 patients.

While the respiratory disease induced by the original strains of COVID-19 appears to be unique for adults, it has major parallels with a mild form of lung disease suffered by some newborns, where excess liquid in lung tissue induces very similar symptoms. During normal fetal development, lung liquid fills the future airways but this liquid must be cleared at birth to allow air to enter the lungs. While much of this liquid is cleared into lung tissue, causing oedema, newborns are uniquely adapted to deal with this liquid and do not display the same severity of disease as severely affect COVID-19 patients. We intend to apply the knowledge that we have gained in studying how newborns cope with excess liquid in lung tissue to adult animal models of COVID-19 to better understand the cause of the respiratory disease and to identify more effective treatments for severely affected patients. As little to nothing is known about the causes of the respiratory disease associated with COVID-19, we need to study animal models of this disease in order to: (i) understand the underlying causes,(ii) determine whether we can replicate it in the absence of the inflammatory process,(iii) identify major risk factors that amplify the severity of the disease and (iv) investigate treatment strategies that improves or worsens patient management.