Respiratory diseases are increasingly recognized to have their origins during perinatal and early postnatal lung development, a time of significant adaptation to large changes in redox conditions as well as mechanical forces.
This issue of the Journal presents a Forum highlighting studies of the interplay between reactive oxygen/nitrogen species and the systems that have evolved to degrade them or exploit them, as well as the cellular repair processes that respond to early life redox stress in the lung. This group of authors suggests new understanding of these events that may point the way to improved therapeutic approaches.