MTOR and newborn respiratory distress syndrome: On the cellular level, there seems to be a fine-tuned balance of mTOR/Akt activation that needs to be maintained for proper lung maturation: On the one hand, induction of Akt signaling protected neonatal lungs from hypoxia-induced injury [52], while inactivation of the mTOR/Akt pathway negatively regulated SP-A secretion in alveolar epithelial cells and contributed to respiratory distress syndrome in mice or early lethality, respectively [53, 54].