The University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s Christopher Waters, PhD, professor and interim chair of the Department of Physiology in the College of Medicine, has received a $1.7 million award from the National Institutes of Health for his project titled “ASK1 and Ventilator-Induced Lung Injury.”

The study will examine the therapies associated with ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI), specifically looking at the protein ASK1, in the hopes of reducing lung injury during treatment.

Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) is commonly caused by infection or injury to the lungs. According to the American Lung Association, there are approximately 200,000 cases of ARDS each year in the U.S. and very few therapeutic options are currently available.