Nairrita Majumder, PhD

Pneumonia is a lung infection that causes the air sacs to fill with fluid and makes it hard to breathe. One million Americans are hospitalized each year due to bacterial lung infections. They are treated with oxygen and antibiotics, both of which can cause additional lung damage and harmful side effects in other organs. Hence, the development of new drugs to improve the outcomes of these patients is crucial. We discovered that bacterial pneumonia decreases the levels of a potassium channel, called TREK-1, in mouse and human lungs, resulting in further lung damage. Nevertheless, a few TREK-1 channels remain intact and we developed new compounds that can activate these channels to protect against the lung damage caused by bacterial infections and toxic oxygen levels. We will study this promising new approach using mouse models and human lung cells exposed to live bacteria and oxygen, and will treat them with these new compounds. We expect these compounds to reduce lung injury.