Dr. Kalpaj Parekh’s laboratory has recently been awarded a $2.9 million R01 research grant from the National Institutes of Health, National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, entitled “Pathogenesis of Airway stem cell abnormalities in Obliterative Bronchiolitis”. This grant builds on the prior work that Drs. Anthony Swatek, Thomas Lynch, John Engelhardt and Kal Parekh published recently showing that stem cells are exhausted in the transplanted lungs which leads to the scarring of the airways. This work was supported by research grants from the NIH (K08), Thoracic Surgery Foundation, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and American Society of Transplant Surgeons to Dr. Parekh. As part of the R01 grant, Dr. Parekh’s laboratory is currently focusing on understanding the mechanisms of stem cell exhaustion in the transplanted lungs and how to prevent this from happening . It is the first time that a link between stem cell depletion and obliterative bronchiolitis (rejection of transplanted lungs) has been shown to be related using the novel ferret model of lung transplantation that was developed at the University of Iowa by Dr. Parekh.