Capturing Lung Development

Our lungs develop during all three trimesters of pregnancy, so for babies born prematurely, the lungs may not have had enough time to form correctly. As a result, they may be susceptible to disease. This is particularly true for the alveoli – tiny sacs at the end of the branches in the lungs where gas exchange occurs. It‘s difficult to study how alveoli form in developing foetuses, so researchers have devised a new way to understand more about the steps involved in alveoli maturation and help find ways to better treat conditions. Creating an organoid – a ‘mini developing lung’ grown in the lab, now enables tracking of how and when alveoli form and the genes and proteins influencing the process to be pinpointed. As if you were moving through them, this video shows an example of what these organoids look like and the structures they mimic (branches and alveoli in various colours).

Written by Sophie Arthur

Sophie Arthur

former Science Communications Officer MRC LMS

Formerly a stem cell biologist, Sophie has since moved into science communication working at the MRC LMS. She also writes an award winning science and education blog Soph talks science.

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• Video from work by Kyungtae Lim and colleagues
• Wellcome Trust, CRUK Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Cell Stem Cell, December 2022