Dr Stephen Land

I started out in laboratories in the UK (Aberdeen), Canada (UBC, Vancouver) and the US (MBL, Woods Hole) that subscribed to a concept known as the “August Krogh Principle” which states that many processes contributing to human disease can be studied using organisms with naturally evolved defences to extreme conditions. For example, we studied how fish tolerate the very low oxygen levels in the Amazon River through to freeze tolerance and hibernation in freshwater frogs and turtles. This work was (and still is) relevant to several areas of medicine such as the action of anaesthetics, the preservation of organs for transplant, understanding why organs fail during heart-attack or stroke, how fuel use is regulated during periods of feast and famine and how cancerous tumours grow despite little access to nutrients or oxygen.

Many of the same processes that enable survival of harsh conditions, perhaps surprisingly, also influence organ development in pregnancy.  I study how these processes influence the precisely balanced branch-like growth of the respiratory tree and promote the formation of lung defects in diseases such as Tuberous Sclerosis, Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome and Cystic Fibrosis. You can find out more about these research interests at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stephen_Land