{"id":237268,"date":"2026-05-16T10:11:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T15:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/how-lungs-balance-defense-and-damage-by-tuning-responses-to-deeper-threats"},"modified":"2026-05-16T10:11:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T15:11:42","slug":"how-lungs-balance-defense-and-damage-by-tuning-responses-to-deeper-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/how-lungs-balance-defense-and-damage-by-tuning-responses-to-deeper-threats","title":{"rendered":"How lungs balance defense and damage by tuning responses to deeper threats"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/how-lungs-balance-defense-and-damage-by-tuning-responses-to-deeper-threats.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Barrier organs that form boundaries between the body and the outside environment, such as the lungs, skin, and intestines, face a difficult balancing act. They must respond quickly to threats such as infection, but they also need to avoid triggering unnecessary inflammation that can damage the tissue. A new study led by Whitehead Institute member Pulin Li and graduate student in her lab Diep Nguyen reveals one way the lung manages that tradeoff.<\/p>\n<p>Published in <i>Cell Systems<\/i>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cell.com\/cell-systems\/abstract\/S2405-4712(26)00093-1\" target=\"_blank\">research<\/a> found that immune sensitivity is not evenly distributed across the lung. Instead, it arranges in tiers: cells at the outer surface respond cautiously, while cells deeper in the tissue are more likely to sound the alarm when a threat breaks through.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe central question was how tissues balance the benefits and harmful effects of immune activation when they face different degrees of danger or stress,\u201d says Li, who is also a professor of biology at MIT. \u201cToo little immune activation leaves the tissue unprotected, but too much can create inflammation and damage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barrier organs that form boundaries between the body and the outside environment, such as the lungs, skin, and intestines, face a difficult balancing act. They must respond quickly to threats such as infection, but they also need to avoid triggering unnecessary inflammation that can damage the tissue. A new study led by Whitehead Institute member [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}