Parraga Lab
The Parraga Team is fascinated by the interactions of lung growth and development with lung aging and disease.
The lungs are central to homeostasis and to life; without optimal lung structure and function, all other physiological systems in humans are compromised and eventually fail.
Paradoxically, lung abnormalities are expressed "silently" until disease mechanisms are well-established or irreversible because fundamentally, the respiratory system is over-engineered for day to day tasks. This makes detection and a deep understanding of lung disease and its mechanisms extremely challenging.
The Parraga team develops new ways to non-invasively image the lungs using x-ray CT and MRI. The major goal is to change the way lung disease is measured and provide a deeper understanding of the pathological causes of symptoms, exercise limitation, need for hospitalization and risk of death.
The Team's principle focus is on asthma, COPD, cannabis and vaping associated lung injury and disease.
