Why Choose the Children's Interstitial and Diffuse Lung Disease Center

Innovative research

The Division of Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine has an active research program across basic science, physiology, and clinical trials. Our experts strive to understand the root causes and develop new treatments to improve the lives of children with lung diseases and promote lung health. The Division of Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine is an avid participant in research conducted through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other organizations committed to advancing treatment options and knowledge of the complex disorders we treat.

The Division’s innovative studies in ChILD include studies to identify the underlying genetic causes of lung disease, biobanking to make patient samples available for future research, novel techniques of assessing lung function in young children, and pioneering clinical trials.

• The National Registry for Childhood ILD, led by Dr. Lisa Young, is administered at CHOP. The study includes more than 25 children’s hospitals with more than 600 children who have ILD enrolled.
• CHOP’s Lung Research Center brings together investigators conducting basic and translational research focused on lung biology and mechanisms of childhood lung diseases. 
• The Penn-CHOP Lung Biology Institute (LBI)—a collaboration with Penn Medicine—is at the forefront of pulmonary research, developing novel approaches to prevent and treat human lung disease. The unique patient populations at Penn and CHOP will enable breakthrough research focused on identifying the underlying causes of human respiratory diseases using innovative cellular, genetic, and genomic technologies to define the molecular and genetic basis of both chronic and rare lung diseases.

Collaboration with patient advocacy groups

The ChILD Center at CHOP was developed in parallel with and in collaboration with a network of centers around the country.  We partner with patient advocacy groups, such as the ChILD Foundation, the NEHI Research Foundation, and others, as too little information is known about this group of respiratory disorders. Because ILD is rare, working together allows us to pool our information to develop the most effective treatments.