Asthma

Parasitic worms are complex organisms which can survive in our bodies for years, cleverly evading the immune system by releasing molecules to suppress its actions. This suppression of the immune response by parasites has the useful side-effect that it can also suppress allergic diseases such as asthma - diseases which are caused by similar types of immune responses as those designed to kill worms.

So far, Dr McSorley’s research has discovered several individual parasitic worm-derived molecules which can block critical aspects of the immune response which cause asthma.

Thanks to this Enhancing Research Award, he will test these molecules in mice and measure their impact on lung function and structure during asthma-like disease. He will use a model of asthma dependent on inhalation of House Dust Mite extracts, one of the most common causes of allergy in the UK, to understand how this causes asthma-like disease, and how parasite molecules can control this.

Dr McSorley will test four individual molecules that have been identified as being released by parasitic worms, and which act on the immune system. The first two molecules, HpARI and HpBARI, act on the signals which start immune responses, while the second two molecules, HpAPY and HpDNAse, act on signals released from cells which become damaged during asthmatic reactions.

Dr McSorley will administer each of these molecules individually to either prevent or treat asthma and use them in combination at the phases of diseases where they have the most potent effect, to show how parasites suppress allergic immune responses, and how we could develop these findings towards treatments for human asthma.