Interventional Pulmonology Research

Investigator-initiated clinical trials 

Goal: Continue to develop a collaborative multicenter research infrastructure for efficient deployment of industry-sponsored and investigator-initiated trials in Interventional Pulmonology.  

Industry-sponsored trials   

The Vanderbilt Interventional Pulmonary Research Lab (VIPR) lab is involved in multiple industry sponsored clinical trials including bronchoscopy studies on rheoplasty for chronic bronchitis, gene-mediated cytotoxic immunotherapy and bronchoscopic microwave ablation for oligometastatic disease.  

Biomedical engineering research – VISE collaboration 

Goals: Foster innovation, change the current paradigm in Interventional Pulmonology research and IP clinical practice, and reinforce Vanderbilt as the leader in IP translational research  

In collaboration with the Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering, the VIPR lab is working on innovative solutions in bronchoscopy and thoracoscopy to define the future of IP.   

Lung Cancer Biomarker Research – MASLAB collaboration 

In collaboration with the MASLAB (Multidisciplinary Assessment of Lung cAncer with Biomarkers), the VIPR lab is developing novel imaging techniques to characterize indeterminate lung nodules and working on integrating intelligent bronchoscopic ablation solutions for the future of lung cancer treatment. The MASLAB is funded by multiple R01 and U01 grants (leads: Eric Grogan, Fabien Maldonado).  

Pleural disease biomarker research – MASLAB / EV Center collaboration    

In collaboration with the MASLAB, and the Extracellular Vesicle (EV) Center, the VIPR lab is developing pleural based EV-cargo classifiers and pleural fluid microbiome signatures to better elucidate the process of pleural carcinogenesis. These classifiers may improve our diagnostic ability of malignant and non-malignant effusions. Our lab is home to a comprehensive pleural fluid biorepository (V-PEAK biobank) to support a broad range of biomarker investigations (lead: Samira Shojaee).