Who we are :

The Experimental Pulmonology and Inflammation Research (EXPIRE) group is a scientific research group housed in the Medical Biology and Pathology department in the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG). The main research focus of the group are lung diseases: Asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). Diseased and healthy lungs are studied in our laboratory at genetic, cellular, immunological, and 3D structural levels, from childhood to old age.


Our Research ->

Latest News:

Groeifonds grant of €4.4 million for research on personalized treatment of asthma & COPD


Our Latest Publications:

  • van Breugel, M, de Jong, E, Buikema, HJ, Petoukhov, I, Nawijn, MC, Burgess, JK et al.. A deep learning framework for histopathological analysis of pixel-level extracellular matrix variation in standard H&E-stained images. Sci Rep. 2026; :. doi: 10.1038/s41598-026-56138-9. PubMed PMID:42331910 .
  • Pouwels, SD, Chen, H, Rathnayake, SNH, Lan, A, Mahbub, RM, Yeung, ACY et al.. A comprehensive multi-omics and functional study of evolutionary adaptive responses to smoke. iScience. 2026;29 (5):115547. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2026.115547. PubMed PMID:42016314 PubMed Central PMC13092862.

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