About the Lab

Gustavo Nino, M.D., M.S., is director of Sleep Medicine and Airway Biology Research at Children's National Hospital. His research program is centered on the Neonatal and Infant Clinical and Experimental (NICE) Airway Biology Laboratory, a multidisciplinary effort developed to advance our knowledge of the pathobiology of respiratory disorders in young children, the number one cause of hospitalization and mortality in this age group worldwide.

Our team is particularly interested in understanding why humans are more susceptible to respiratory viruses during early life. Our emphasis includes high-risk populations such as babies born prematurely and children with Down syndrome. We are also interested in elucidating the earliest origins of respiratory disorders during infancy, including bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), asthma and obstructive sleep apnea. To accomplish these goals, we employ a variety of state-of-the-art innovative techniques for respiratory phenotyping, including computer-based analysis of electronic health records, bedside monitors, sleep studies and multidimensional lung imaging.

Our laboratory is also interested in elucidating the basic molecular mechanisms driving the early development and maturation of the immune system in the respiratory mucosa of young children. For this purpose, we use human models of the airway epithelium of newborns and infants developed in our lab.