My long-term research goal is to develop effective gene therapy for cystic fibrosis (CF) lung disease. To this end, a part of my work has focused on virology—specifically, dissecting the transduction biology of recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) in human airways and investigating human bocavirus 1 (HBoV1) infection in airway epithelial models. As the development of gene therapies requires preclinical testing in animal models that faithfully recapitulate the human disease, a second major area of my research has been the development of CF models, particularly using the ferret. After 27 years at the University of Iowa, I joined the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) as a professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine, in June 2025.