Dr. Ryan’s research program focuses on understanding regulation of specialized airway epithelialcell types in the human lung in the context of lung injury, regeneration and disease pathogenesis, with a particular emphasis on rare lung disease including Cystic Fibrosis and Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia. Projects are focused on: 1) the generation and differentiation of pluripotent stem cells to model disease, including human and ferret models, 2) understanding region-specific mechanisms of mucociliary clearance in the lung, 3) characterizing the mechanisms controlling the differentiation of multiciliated cells and 4) role of the niche in regulating airway stem cell self-renewal and differentiation. Recently her laboratory has included a focus on injury caused by viral infection, SARS-CoV-2, of the airway epithelium.Her laboratory is skillful in the generation and differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells and their genetic manipulation using CRISPR-based gene editing for disease modeling. Dr. Ryan is currently Associate Director for the Center for Gene Therapy.