Darcy Wagner, PhD, leads the charge in advancing bioengineered therapies for acute and chronic lung diseases, centred on advanced 3D bioprinting for precise lung tissue generation

SOURCE: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University, by Dana Ajjaoui
August 8, 2024

The shortage of organ donations is more than a public health crisis for Darcy Wagner, PhD, a senior scientist in the Translational Research in Respiratory Diseases Program at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC). It is a personal tragedy-turned-mission.

“When I was young, my best friend needed a kidney transplant,” recounts the Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering in McGill’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. “But he died while waiting on the list.”

“I was very much affected by the shortage of donor organs,” she adds. “It’s the personal driving force behind what I’ve done for my entire career.”

Prof. Wagner’s path to working on lung regeneration was an unexpected one. “I kind of got to lung by accident,” she recalls. After a start in mechanical engineering, where she gained essential skills in materials, manufacturing and computational modelling, she did her PhD in biomedical engineering focused on bone tissue. There, she had an unexpected opportunity to work on a lung tissue engineering project. Despite never having worked with that organ, she realized she had found her calling. “And then I never left lung regeneration.”

This newfound passion was solidified during her postdoc in Vermont where she scaled up the decellularization process to human-sized lungs using pig lungs. “I will never forget – it was the first time we really got cells to survive,” she says. “It took a lot of hard work and creativity to solve the problems we were facing.”

“Sometimes it sounds really crazy, what I’m trying to do, but there are moments when we make real breakthroughs and experiencing this makes you believe that it is possible.”

Leading the charge

Based at the RI-MUHC’s Glen site, Prof. Wagner now leads cutting-edge research in lung regenerative medicine, addressing acute and chronic lung diseases, which rank as the third and fourth leading causes of death worldwide. Recently appointed as a Canada Excellence Research Chair, her program focuses on refining lung tissue generation through advanced 3D bioprinting techniques.

Prof. Wagner describes tissue engineering as an approach that combines cells with synthetic materials: “We provide a template which we can seed cells onto,” she explains. “This way, the cells come already attached to a tissue substrate. We can generate smaller or larger pieces of tissue this way. Our goal is for it to integrate with the rest of the body, which is much more realistic than trying to bioengineer a whole lung.”

Pursuing ethical innovation

Prof. Wagner expresses a mix of excitement and humility about working in a field with the potential to save lives through regenerative medicine. “It’s exciting, humbling… but it also comes with a big responsibility,” she says. She emphasizes the critical importance of ethical development of new therapies, noting that shortcuts can lead to failure and cost lives.

“There’s so much hope for what these therapies can bring that some people may feel pressure to cut corners. There’s a really high responsibility to do this in the most ethical way.”

Prof. Wagner remains driven and optimistic. “I don’t think there’s anything in life that’s impossible,” she notes. “It’s often how we frame or define what success is.” This perspective fuels her commitment to the rigorous and ethical pursuit of breakthroughs in regenerative medicine.

Prof. Wagner feels privileged to be part of this groundbreaking work, deeply inspired by its potential impact on patients and families waiting for lung transplants. “The other thing that really keeps me motivated is knowing that we give hope to patients and their families who are waiting for lung transplants,” she says. “I think almost all of them understand that although it may not happen in their lifetime, someday we’ll have some therapies. And that gives them hope.”

Looking to the future, Prof. Wagner is excited about the potential to translate research into tangible patient benefits. “Maybe in eight years, we can start conversations about drawing up something that could go into patients, and that’s really exciting.”

Inspiring the next generation

Prof. Wagner sees the future of lung regeneration science in the progress and creativity of her students, which she finds deeply inspiring: “It’s really exciting to watch a student not be able to do things or to really struggle and then to watch them come up with new ideas that you would have never thought of on your own.” She emphasizes the necessity for diversity and change in scientific thinking: “If I’m just replaced, it will just be 100 years of the same type of thinking. The world doesn’t need another one of those people. They need you.”

Thrilled to continue her research at McGill, Prof. Wagner values the significant investments made at the university, in Quebec and nationally, especially the availability of cutting-edge technologies like advanced microscopes and bioprinters. “These resources will allow me to stay competitive internationally and contribute to McGill by bringing new technologies and equipment to Canada.”
 

—First published on July 31, 2024, by McGill University