Dr. Hasina Outtz Reed, currently a postdoc at The University of Pennsylvania, under the supervision of Dr. Mark Kahn, received a Travel Award from LE&RN to attend the Lymphatic Forum in Austin, TX. We asked Dr. Outtz Reed to share her thoughts on that experience with us and to tell us a bit about her research and future plans. Dr. Outtz Reed contributed this blog post for LE&RN.
1. What did you get out of the Lymphatic Forum? Why did you feel it was important to attend?
The Lymphatic Forum is one of my favorite conferences of the year, as it provides a great overview of the current state of lymphatic research. I am always blown away by the amazing work that is being done to push this field forward. It is also an invaluable opportunity to network with other lymphatic researchers and to stay connected to this scientific community.
2. What are your areas of interest in research?
I am interested in how the pulmonary lymphatics affect lung biology, in particular in response to lung injury. Accordingly, I have developed mouse models of impaired lymphatic flow that allow me to test how lymphatic dysfunction may be pathogenic in a variety of settings. These studies aim to uncover a role for the lymphatics in a variety of chronic lung diseases and potentially new therapeutic targets.
3. What are your hopes and plans for your career and your research?
This July, I will be starting my own lab at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City that will be focused primarily on the pulmonary lymphatics. I hope to build on my work in the Kahn Lab and to develop a scientific niche with particular expertise in using mouse models to test the role of lymphatics in lung disease. I hope that my work will greatly contribute to the lymphatic research field with new approaches toward the study of lung biology.
4. Why do you believe that, in general, lymphatic research is important? What might the field accomplish within the next few years?
The lymphatics are a relatively understudied area, and one with tremendous promise in terms of understudying human disease and therapies. Particularly when it comes to the pulmonary lymphatics, research in this area has been challenging. I think there is great potential to uncover fundamental roles of the lymphatics in lung biology in the next few years, as well as uncover how these vessels contribute to lung injury. We are really just getting started in this area and I think the next few years will result in some game-changing research that really shakes up how we think about the interplay between pulmonary lymphatics and lung biology.
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