First person – Christy Tulen and Ying Wang

First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Christy Tulen and Ying Wang are co-first authors on ‘ Dysregulated mitochondrial metabolism upon cigarette smoke exposure in various human bronchial epithelial cell models’, published in DMM. Christy is a PhD student in the lab of Prof. Frederik-Jan van Schooten at Maastricht University Medical Center+, Maastricht, The Netherlands, investigating the mechanistic involvement of smoking-associated aldehyde-induced mitochondrial dysfunction in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease lung pathology. Ying is a PhD student in the lab of Prof. Pieter S. Hiemstra at Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands, investigating the interaction between respiratory viruses (SARS-CoV-2 and rhinovirus) and human lung epithelial cells.