Herro Research Lab

The Herro Lab at Cincinnati Children’s studies fibrotic diseases of the lungs (idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, neutrophilic asthma, systemic sclerosis, cancerous scleroderma), skin (atopic dermatitis, psoriasis), liver (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, hepatotoxicant toxicant-driven injury), and gut.

Fibrosis represents 45% of deaths in the United States, however, treatment options to resolve or reverse fibrosis are limited. The goal of the Herro Lab is to develop effective therapeutics and novel prognostic biomarkers for fibrotic diseases. 

To address this goal, our team has taken particular interest in tumor necrosis superfamily (TNFSF) members and their roles in inflammation and fibrosis. Further work in the lab investigates whether these TNFSF members could act as therapeutic targets to suppress disease symptoms and cure fibrosis.

To move from bench to bedside, the lab has adopted a multi-layered approach to study fibrosis and identify novel biomarkers for fibrotic progression, integrating transcriptomic analyses, novel mouse models of human disease, and human-derived organoids.