Federal Project Grant Award Summary

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center received a $120,375 Project Grant award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) under the Cardiovascular Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.837), effective April 15, 2026, with completion anticipated by January 31, 2028. The award supports the development of FLUME (Fetal Lung Multiomics Exploration), a human fetal lung multiomics cell atlas with computational models designed to predict fetal origins and molecular perturbations associated with childhood interstitial lung diseases (CHILD). Through secondary analysis of existing large-scale single-cell multiomics and spatial transcriptomics datasets of human fetal lung tissue, the research will identify specific fetal lung cell states and genes that, when disrupted, produce cellular and molecular phenotypes consistent with CHILD caused by variants in genes such as FOXF1 and TBX4.

The project addresses a critical knowledge gap regarding early disruptions in fetal lung development and the mechanistic basis of rare but severe respiratory disorders in neonates and infants. By leveraging previously published datasets rather than generating new primary data, the award focuses on computational and analytical work to create predictive models that can enhance understanding of how genetic perturbations during critical developmental windows lead to postnatal lung disease manifestations, with potential implications for improving diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic intervention strategies in pediatric pulmonary disorders.