Asthma and airway disorders
The Department of Genomics and Precision Medicine has made asthma and airway disorders a major focus of research. This effort is anchored by the NIH-funded AsthMaP™ (Asthma Severity Modifying Polymorphisms) Project, which is a systems biology study of inner-city pediatric asthma. The AsthMaP™ cohort provides extensive clinical, environmental, and social data in addition to genetic and tissue samples to a multidisciplinary group of investigators within ISB and at collaborating institutions.
Members of the asthma and airway disorders group are investigators in the NIH-NIAID funded Inner-City Asthma Consortium clinical trials. Overall the group has published extensively on the role of the MUC5AC gene in airway health and diseases, effect of glucocorticoids on asthma- and cystic fibrosis-relevant gene expression, and contribution of gene variants to environmental tobacco smoke-contribution to asthma.