PNNL/Partners
to Develop Virtual Lung

The Battelle-operated Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will lead a $10 million, five-year, multi-institutional National Institutes of Health study to devise 3-D imaging and computational models of respiratory systems in humans and other mammals.

The grant will enable the Department of Energy (DoE) laboratory and its partners to devise 3-D imaging techniques and simulations of unsurpassed detail that promise better understanding and improved treatment of asthma and other respiratory ailments associated with environmental factors.

The research will culminate in a “pulmonary physiome,” a web-based model for researchers and clinicians.

“This partnership will build the foundation for studying environment-disease interactions,” said Dr. Rick Corley, PNNL staff scientist and program director. Specifically, the project aims to “provide researchers and clinicians with uniquely predictive tools to develop a quantitative understanding of the impact of airborne environmental agents and inhaled drugs on human health and to answer important questions on how respiratory structure relates to function. This will greatly assist in the evaluation, diagnosis, and development of treatments.”

PNNL established its leadership in the field in 2001 when it rolled out the model of working rat lungs it called “the virtual respiratory tract.” At the time, it offered the clearest picture yet of how pollutants enter the respiratory system, how they move and where they accumulate.

The other institutions participating in the new study are the University of Washington, University of California at Davis, the University of Iowa, Oregon State University, University of Utah, CIIT Centers for Health Research of Research Triangle Park, N.C., Mountain-Whisper-Light Statistical Consulting of Seattle, and Computational Geometry Consulting of Los Alamos, NM.

PNNL is a DoE Office of Science laboratory that solves complex problems in energy, national security, the environment, and life sciences by advancing the understanding of physics, chemistry, biology, and computation. PNNL has 3,800 employees, has a $600 million annual budget, and has been managed by Battelle since the laboratory’s inception in 1965.

For more information, contact Dr. Rick Corley at (509) 376-8642, rick.corley@pnl.gov or Mr. Kelvin Soldat at (509) 375-6810, kelvin.soldat@pnl.gov.