Asthma

Inflammation is a core feature in the airways of people with asthma. People with severe, poorly controlled asthma often have a different type of inflammation than people with milder forms of the disease and the processes that lead to this difference are unclear.

Many current asthma treatments don’t work well in patients with severe disease, possibly as a result of this different kind of inflammation. Dr Tara Sutherland from the University of Manchester was awarded a Medical Research Foundation-Asthma UK fellowship to investigate the biological function of a group of proteins that are known to be produced in higher levels in the lungs of people with asthma.

These proteins have been shown to influence the recruitment of cells that cause inflammation and directly change the way in which cells function in the lung. Understanding the behaviour of different cells involved in inflammation could help to identify new targets for treatments for people with severe asthma.