Project Details
Description
A great proportion of asthmatic patients have persistent symptoms and decreased quality of life despite conventional therapy. Although the inflammatory response in the airways has been studied for decades, detailed understanding of the mechanisms remains limited.
The aim of this research programme is to study the interaction between epithelial and mast cells under conditions that damage the airways such as viral infections. How viruses affect the interplay between the two cell types is important since infections are implicated in development of asthma in children and worsening of asthmatic disease in adults.
This will be done by studying: I) which mediators are released from airway epithelial cells from adult and paediatric asthmatics after stimulation with viruses (year 1), II) how these mediators can affect the activity and phenotype of in vitro cultured primary human mast cells (year 2-3), III) morphological characteristics of mast cells in correlation to epithelial changes will be studied in an extensive biopsy material from adult and paediatric asthmatics (year 1 and 4).
The translational research programme, which is based on a unique collaboration between Imperial College London and Lund University, has great potential to answer these questions by combining studies of paediatric and adult human experimental models and in vivo investigations. The main purpose of the research programme is to define mechanisms that will improve treatment of different phenotypes of asthma.
The aim of this research programme is to study the interaction between epithelial and mast cells under conditions that damage the airways such as viral infections. How viruses affect the interplay between the two cell types is important since infections are implicated in development of asthma in children and worsening of asthmatic disease in adults.
This will be done by studying: I) which mediators are released from airway epithelial cells from adult and paediatric asthmatics after stimulation with viruses (year 1), II) how these mediators can affect the activity and phenotype of in vitro cultured primary human mast cells (year 2-3), III) morphological characteristics of mast cells in correlation to epithelial changes will be studied in an extensive biopsy material from adult and paediatric asthmatics (year 1 and 4).
The translational research programme, which is based on a unique collaboration between Imperial College London and Lund University, has great potential to answer these questions by combining studies of paediatric and adult human experimental models and in vivo investigations. The main purpose of the research programme is to define mechanisms that will improve treatment of different phenotypes of asthma.
| Status | Finished |
|---|---|
| Effective start/end date | 2017/12/01 → 2022/12/31 |
Funding
- Swedish Research Council
UKÄ subject classification
- Respiratory Medicine and Allergy