High Content Image Analysis as a Tool to Morphologically Distinguish Macrophage Activation and Determine Its Importance for Foamy Alveolar Macrophage Responses.

Introduction: Lung diseases are an increasing global health burden affecting millions of people worldwide. Only a few new inhaled medicines have reached the market in the last 30 years, in part due to foamy alveolar macrophage (FAM) responses observed in pre-clinical rat studies. The induction mechanism and signaling pathways involved in the development of highly vacuolated 'foamy' phenotype is not known.