2025 annual review of basic and translational research advances in pulmonary fibrosis: a narrative review

Pulmonary fibrosis remains a major unresolved challenge in clinical practice. In 2025, pulmonary fibrosis research achieved a series of important advances. This article reviews the progress in basic and translational research of pulmonary fibrosis in 2025.

To retrieve literature related to basic and translational research in pulmonary fibrosis, a keyword search was performed, which covered PubMed and Web of Science databases for publications from January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025.

Advances in experimental models of pulmonary fibrosis-including animal models, lung-on-a-chip models, and biomaterial-based models-have enabled better recapitulation of pathological characteristics of the disease. At the mechanistic level, deeper insights regarding core pathological processes have been gained, including small-airway dysfunction, aberrant alveolar epithelial repair, profibrotic macrophage activation, adaptive immune niches, and pathological fibroblast transitions. At the translational level, approval of nerandomilast represented an important milestone, while artificial intelligence (AI)-derived compounds, niche-targeted intervention strategies, and combination therapies have broadened the landscape of anti-fibrotic drug development.

In 2025, significant progress has been made in experimental models, mechanistic study, and drug development for pulmonary fibrosis. These advances are shifting the field from a focus on signaling pathways toward an integrative perspective, laying the foundation for in-depth understanding of complex pathological mechanisms of pulmonary fibrosis.