A Tucson doctor and researcher has received nearly $1 million to advance what could be groundbreaking work in predicting and preventing asthma - a disease with a rising incidence in the U.S.
The $958,544 grant to Dr. Donata Vercelli from the National Institutes of Health is part of the federal stimulus package.
Scientists cannot currently pinpoint what makes someone asthmatic. But it is a disease of high concern in the U.S., where asthma is the most common chronic disease among infants, affects one in 15 Americans, and causes at least 4,000 U.S. deaths each year, many of which could have been prevented with proper treatment.
"Asthma has proven one of the most intractable diseases in terms of understanding why people become asthmatic," Vercelli said. "We don't really understand. And that is true of most complex diseases. And it's a disease we don't know how to cure. When you don't know how to cure something, your best bet is to try and prevent it."
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Vercelli, who was trained in Italy and spent 10 years on the faculty of Harvard Medical School before coming to the University of Arizona in 1999, said the two-year grant will help continue work in identifying biological pathways that appear to behave differently in children who will become asthmatic.
The research is closely related to another UA research project that is defining how having dogs in the home near the time of a child's birth decreases his or her risk for asthma. That study, headed by UA College of Pharmacy professor Serrine Lau, also received a two-year National Institutes of Health grant of nearly $1 million.
Asthma is characterized by inflammation resulting in the temporary narrowing of the airways that transport air from the nose and mouth to the lungs. As hygiene has improved in Western nations over the past 50 years, asthma rates have increased. Other research has shown that children who are born while living on farms with livestock have a lower incidence of asthma.
Scientists say exposure to dogs, livestock and poorer hygiene - conditions accompanied by a particularly high load of microbes - stimulates the immune system in a way that balances its activities and regulates its effects. That's because the immune system probably evolved to respond to heavy microbial load, and to take from the environment cues essential for its function, Vercelli said.
Still, while there are environmental factors that appear to increase one's susceptibility to asthma, Vercelli said there are unquestionably genetic factors, too.
"The fact that the environment in which a person is born and raised has such a profound impact on the risk for a disease like asthma begs the question of: How does that happen biologically?" said Vercelli, who is a UA professor of cell biology.
"The hope is to start to get a glimpse of where to look in order to see what it is that makes you asthmatic or non-asthmatic."
Working with Marilyn Halonen of the UA's Arizona Respiratory Center, Vercelli will focus research on 40 randomly selected children who are already part of a longitudinal study.
"The unique feature of this study is that we can look at cord blood in children - samples that have been stored - from children that are now 5 to 8 years old. By 5 to 8 years of age, typically you know whether or not you are asthmatic. So we have the cells from these children collected at birth, and we have the great advantage of being able to anchor it to their status now," Vercelli said.
