Abstract Current models used to study Streptococcus pneumoniae (SP) infections do not account for complex organ microenvironments or species-specific signaling pathways. To address this, we created a vascularized 3D lung-on-a-chip (LoC) that better recapitulates the physiologic lung, including cellular components, immune cell recruitment, blood flow, and oxygen tension. Hypoxia inducible factor 1-alpha (HIF-1α) is a transcription factor known to activate inflammatory pathways during infectious diseases, but its role in acute SP infection remains unclear. LoC was used to validate HIF-1α upregulation and characterize its role in immune cell recruitment. Whole human blood with fluorescently-labeled immune cells were perfused in LoC +/− BAY 87-2243 (HIF-1α chemical inhibitor). HIF1α-dependent inflammatory mediators involved in SP infection were identified by scRNA-seq and confirmed at the protein level by Western blot and ELISA. Preliminary studies of LoC stimulated with SP demonstrated HIF-1α early target gene activation. LoC showed increased CD15 +-neutrophil recruitment from perfused whole blood in microvessels to tissue and airway during SP infection, partially mediated by HIF-1α. IL-17C was identified as the top differentially expressed gene activated by SP and 2D protein analysis showed increased IL-17C levels during HIF-1α knockdown, suggesting that HIF-1α is a negative regulator of IL-17C transcription. These preliminary findings suggest that HIF-1α mediates immune cell recruitment during acute SP infection and support the use of LoC as a pre-clinical human model that can identify key mediators during pneumonia.