Nabhan et al. discovered that Wnt5a secreted from fibroblasts activates a population of alveolar type II progenitor cells (ATII) to help drive repair following influenza-induced lung injury (Nabhan et al., 2018) and the addition of Wnt5a leads to accelerated repair of the alveolar epithelial cell line-A549s whereas depletion or loss of Vangl2 function reduces the ability of A549s or primary tracheal epithelial cells to repair following a scratch wound (Poobalasingam et al., 2017; Cheong et al., 2020). This evidence concerns the gene WNT5A and influenza.