Cell Fate Decisions in the Developing Lung

My project uses two different mouse models to study how the lung develops. At different stages of gestation, we induce the mice with a drug that forces certain cell types to recombine. The recombined cells then become fluorescent, and we can track these cells and how they have differentiated throughout the developing lung. Once the development has been studied in a normal environment, we give the mice a different drug which forces certain cells to prematurely become alveolar fated. The same experiments are repeated with this drug to see how it has affected cell fate decisions. Finally, samples are collected and used for single cell RNA sequencing, which we will then compare with the human lung at various stages of gestation to observe the heterogeneity between the human and mouse lungs.