The Importance of Asthma Research
Asthma is a chronic disease that impacts millions of children worldwide. Other atopic diseases, such as eczema and food allergies, can also predispose children to asthma development. Within the affected population, asthma can have a variety of symptoms, making treatments challenging.
Cincinnati Children’s Division of Asthma Research is dedicated to uncovering the biological, environmental and genetic links that drive asthma development and progression. Our main research goals are to understand why its severity varies among children and how other allergic diseases contribute to asthma development. By focusing on early biomarkers, immune and inflammatory responses in allergic diseases, and changes in airway reactivity, our team focuses on predicting the severity of the disease for each patient and understand mechanisms that drive asthma progression. Ultimately, our research aims to prevent asthma exacerbations and reduce hospitalizations leading to improved daily life for patients.
Our Innovative Integration of Clinical Cohorts, Laboratory Research and Bioinformatics
Our division has crafted a multidisciplinary research design to mechanistically understand the environmental, genetic and biological factors that contribute to allergic diseases and asthma progression. As such, we use samples collected from innovative longitudinal clinical cohorts, laboratory techniques, pre-clinical models and bioinformatic approaches to assess changes in patient microbiome, epigenetic, genetic and transcriptional profiles that contribute to the progression of atopic diseases, from atopic dermatitis to asthma. (see graphic below) Integration of these techniques provide unique translational insights into the pathogenesis of atopic diseases. Furthermore, our research team has contributed to numerous publications and critical new insights into the natural history, epidemiology and mechanistic underpinnings of allergic diseases.
