Research Interests

Mechanisms that underlie the development of Early Cystic Fibrosis Lung Disease: In collaboration with Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands (Dr Hettie Janssens) and University of Western Australia in Perth, Australia (Dr Stephen Stick), Dr Guglani has been working as part of multicenter consortium of sites that are conducting studies related to early stages of CF lung disease. This work is being done in collaboration with Rabindra Tirouvanziam and Joshua Chandler at Emory University. I have been instrumental in establishing a cohort of patients with CF at Emory CF center that are being followed in a prospective manner as part of an ongoing study called Integrated Monitoring Platform for Early Disease Events in Cystic Fibrosis (IMPEDE-CF). This study has provided key insights into the inflammatory and metabolic markers of early stages of inflammation and infection in young patients with CF. Some of the key publications related are listed below:

• Margaroli C, Horati H, Garratt LW, Giacalone VD, Schofield C, Dittrich AS, Rosenow T, Dobosh BS, Lim HS, Frey DL, Veltman M, Silva GL, Brown MR, Schultz C, Tiddens HAWM, Ranganathan S, Chandler JD, Qiu P, Peng L, Scholte BJ, Mall MA, Kicic A, Guglani L, Stick SM, Janssens HM, Tirouvanziam R. Macrophage PD-1 associates with neutrophilia and reduced bacterial killing in early cystic fibrosis airway disease. J Cyst Fibros 2022; 21(6): 967-976. PubMed PMID: 35732550.
• Giacalone VD, Moncada-Giraldo D, Margaroli C, Brown MR, Silva GL, Chandler JD, Peng L, Tirouvanziam R, Guglani L. Pilot study of inflammatory biomarkers in matched induced sputum and bronchoalveolar lavage of 2-year-olds with cystic fibrosis. Pediatr Pulmonol 2022; 57(9): 2189-2198. PubMed PMID: 35637404.
• Margaroli C, Garratt LW, Horati H, Dittrich AS, Rosenow T, Montgomery ST, Frey DL, Brown MR, Schultz C, Guglani L, Kicic A, Peng L, Scholte BJ, Mall MA, Janssens HM, Stick SM, Tirouvanziam R. Elastase exocytosis by airway neutrophils is associated with early lung damage in children with cystic fibrosis. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2019; 199(7): 873-881. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6444666.
• Chandler JD, Margaroli C, Horati H, Kilgore MB, Veltman M, Liu HK, Taurone AJ, Peng L, Guglani L, Uppal K, Go YM, Tiddens HAWM, Scholte BJ, Tirouvanziam R, Jones DP, Janssens HM. Myeloperoxidase oxidation of methionine associates with early cystic fibrosis lung disease. Eur Respir J 2018; 52(4): 1801118. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7034951.

Factors affecting sweat chloride concentration in children being evaluated for Cystic Fibrosis: Measurement of sweat chloride concentration is considered the gold standard for the diagnosis of Cystic Fibrosis and Dr Guglani has been involved in clinical research related to this important diagnostic test. Besides identifying a novel cause of false positive elevation of sweat chloride concentrations (topiramate use), Dr Guglani has also addressed the various conditions that can affect sweat chloride concentrations. Dr Guglani’s main goal is to reduce variability in sweat testing and overcome the difficulty in obtaining adequate volume of sweat for measurement of the chloride concentration in clinical samples. This has led to collaboration with Georgia Institute of Technology with several ongoing projects related to alternative methods for sweat testing. Dr Guglani led and completed the first-in-humans clinical trial for a novel method for induction of sweat production during the process of sweat testing and a patent that was filed for this novel technology is currently pending.

1. Chen JY, Li S, Silva GL, Chandler JD, Prausnitz MR, Guglani L. Sweat induction using Pilocarpine microneedle patches for sweat testing in healthy adults. J Cyst Fibros 2023; S1569-1993(23)00120-0. PubMed PMID: 37236899.
2. Li S, Hart K, Norton N, Ryan CA, Guglani L, Prausnitz MR. Administration of pilocarpine by microneedle patch as a novel method for cystic fibrosis sweat testing. Bioeng Transl Med 2021; 6(3): e10222. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8459588.
3. Guglani L, Moir D, Jain A. Sweat chloride concentrations in children with Idiopathic Nephrotic Syndrome. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2016; 51(1): 49-52. PubMed PMID: 26309139.
4. Guglani L, Stabel D, Weiner DJ. False-positive and false-negative sweat tests: Systematic review of the evidence. Pediatr Allergy Immunol Pulmonol. 2015; 28(4): 198-211. PubMed PMID: 35923002.

Dr Guglani is currently involved in several ongoing projects related to Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia. One of these projects involves the use of non-invasive airway sampling methods such nasal filter paper collection and exhaled breath condensate collection from pediatric patients with PCD to monitor upper and lower airway markers of inflammation.

Dr Guglani has been working in collaboration with his Radiology colleagues at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and also with the Lung Analysis Lab at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Dr Guglani underwent additional training for learning advanced chest computed tomography (CT) scoring methods such as CF-CT score and Perth Rotterdam Annotated Grid Morphometric Analysis in CF (PRAGMA-CF) scoring system. He has recently also collaborated with Artificial Intelligence researchers from Dr Anant Madabhushi’s group to develop novel methods for detection and monitoring of early changes related to bronchiectasis in patients with CF and PCD.

Dr Guglani’s quest for developing a better method for sweat testing led him down the path of medical device development and testing. He now serves as the Medical Advisor for the Wearable Intelligent Systems in Healthcare (WISH) center at Georgia Institute of Technology. He has several ongoing projects related to various medical devices and technologies that are in various stages of development.