Chief Investigator: Marcus Ross Christensen (University of Copenhagen)
Gene Expression Profiling – A Novel and Efficient Method for Phenotyping Severe Asthma?
This project will clear the way for the use of a more individualised and better treatment for severe asthma patients. It will enable doctors to identify the inflammatory subtype (phenotype) of severe asthma in the individual patient and help doctors to decide which treatment options are the best for the patient. Hence, optimizing the 6-Gene Signature for use in the daily clinical care is expected to improve management of severe asthma in general.
Chief Investigator: Vanessa Clark (University of Newcastle)
Targeting Anxiety and Depression in Severe Asthma: A Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial
Anxiety and depression are highly prevalent comorbid conditions among people with severe asthma. Anxiety and depression impact on treatment outcomes and reduce adherence to medication. However, anxiety and depression are not specifically addressed in severe asthma management. This project will develop and pilot test an intervention targeting anxiety and depression in severe asthma. It is the aim to make this intervention brief and able to be feasibly delivered by members of the multidisciplinary health team within the primary care and tertiary care setting.
Chief Investigator: Michael Fricker (University of Newcastle)
Macrophage Dysfunction in Severe Asthma
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the lungs. In severe asthma, inflammation becomes resistant to conventional treatments, resulting in debilitating illness. Understanding of the inflammatory processes that cause severe asthma is critical to continued development and improvement of therapies. Macrophages are critical immune cells in the airways that become dysfunctional and drug-resistant in severe asthma. This project will use cutting-edge technologies to understand the altered function of macrophages in severe asthma in unprecedented detail. This analysis will increase our understanding of inflammation in severe asthma, which could identify new biomarkers and therapeutic targets for improved monitoring and treatment.
Chief Investigator: Vanessa McDonald (University of Newcastle)
Patient Reported Outcome Measure in Severe Asthma (PROMISe): A New Tool That Measures Severe Asthma’s Impact on Quality of Life
At present there are no patient reported outcome measures developed specifically for patients with severe asthma. This project will develop a PROM that can be used in clinical and research settings to assess the impact of severe asthma on patients’ lives. It will also provide a valid and reliable tool that can be used by clinicians and researchers to assess response to novel treatment interventions in severe asthma.
Chief Investigator: Anne Vertigan (John Hunter Hospital)
Voice and Upper Airway Symptoms in Asthma
Many patients with asthma suffer from voice and throat symptoms that increase the severity of their asthma symptoms and interfere with their ability to participate in everyday activities such as talking. This project will examine the cause of voice and throat symptoms in people with severe asthma and design a new treatment program for these symptoms.
Seed Grants (Round 2: January 2016):
Chief Investigator: Katherine Baines (University of Newcastle)
A Sputum Gene Expression Signature Of 6 Biomarkers Can Predict Azithromycin Treatment Responsiveness And Future Frequent Exacerbations In Severe Asthma
Many people in Australia suffer from severe asthma, where they have trouble breathing, and serious lung attacks. Better treatments and management strategies are needed for severe asthma. We have recently developed a biomarker that measures the activity of 6 genes. It can tell us what type of asthma a person has and whether the current available treatments will work for them. This study will test if the 6-gene signature can tell us whether the patient will respond to a new antibiotic treatment, and whether they are likely to have frequent severe lung attacks in the future.
Chief Investigator: Claude Farah (Woolcock Institute of Medical Research)
Understanding The Effects Of Bronchial Thermoplasty In Severe Asthma: A Pilot Study
Researchers at the Macquarie University and the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research are studying the effects of a new treatment available for sufferers of severe asthma. Macquarie University is the only site in Sydney that offers this novel treatment, which involves the use of a heat probe applied to the airways of the lung. The treatment is safe and effective in most patients, but its mechanism is unclear. The study will measure the function of the lung before and after treatment. It is hoped that this study will help clinicians identify the patients most likely to benefit from this treatment.
Chief Investigator: Alan James (Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital)
Heterogeneity Of Airway Remodeling In Severe Asthma
The airways narrow excessively in patients with asthma and this can be reversed with medications that relax the increased smooth muscle around the airways. The increased muscle is related to inflammation in the airways and uneven distribution of the increased muscle in the large and small airways may lead to unstable regions of the lung that close off. This project will examine the distribution of increased smooth muscle and inflammatory cells in large and small airways in patients with severe asthma. This will help determine how, and what types, of therapy might be targeted to different patients with severe asthma.
Chief Investigator: Vanessa McDonald (University of Newcastle)
Development And Validation Of The First Patient-Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) For Severe Asthma Patients
At present there are no patient-reported outcome measures developed specifically for patients with severe asthma. This project will develop a PROM that can be used in clinical and research settings to assess the impact of severe asthma on patients’ lives. It will also provide a valid and reliable tool that can be used by clinicians and researchers to assess response to novel treatment interventions in severe asthma.
Chief Investigator: John Upham (University of Queensland)
Aberrant Immune Responses To Viruses In Severe Asthma: What Role Does IL-33 Play?
A significant proportion of people with severe asthma become very unwell when they develop the common cold. Why such people are vulnerable to common cold viruses is not well understood, but seems to involve abnormal function of the immune system with reduced ability to control inflammation in the air passages of the lungs. This study will help us to identify how and why this is happening in people with severe asthma, and what might be done to improve matters.
Chief Investigator: Jodie Simpson (University of Newcastle)
The Impact Of Azithromycin Therapy On The Airway Microbiome In Severe Asthma
Patients with severe asthma experience chronic symptoms and severe attacks, which can result in hospitalisation. Airway inflammation in severe asthma is known to be a key contributing factor, however the reasons why inflammation is uncontrolled remain elusive. Further research is needed to understand the cause of airway inflammation and to examine new anti-inflammatory treatments in asthma. Antibiotic therapy offers a new treatment for patients with severe asthma. Macrolide antibiotics are unusual as they offer both anti-inflammatory and antibiotic benefits. The purpose of this study is to understand how macrolide therapy impacts on the airway bacteria in severe asthma.
Chief Investigator: Cindy Thamrin (Woolcock Institute of Medical Research)
Home Monitoring Of Lung Function Using Forced Oscillations In Severe Asthma: A Prospective, Proof–Of-Concept Study
Researchers at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research are trialing a new automated alert system for asthma attacks, which will allow sufferers to know in advance when to take their medication and prevent the attack. Designed by collaborators in Milan, Italy, the system involves a simple breathing test, which only takes minutes each day. The system will alert both the patient and the caregiver, via mobile Internet, if the breathing test indicates an attack is likely within the week. It is hoped that the new system will offer better quality of care and management of disease for severe asthmatics, by taking advantage of modern technology.
Seed Grants (Round 1: September 2015)
Chief Investigator: Peter Wark (University of Newcastle)
How Oxidative Stress Makes Severe Asthmatics Susceptible To Infection With Rhinovirus
Despite improvements in care for asthma, Australians still suffer and die from acute asthma. It is not clear why some and not other asthmatics are at risk of acute asthma, but respiratory viruses trigger most episodes. We have previously shown that asthmatic airway cells are susceptible to infection with these viruses. Our data shows cell stress predisposes to this susceptibility and we will now determine new interventions to prevent changes from happening.
Chief Investigator: Phan Nguyen (The Royal Adelaide Hospital)
The Mechanism Of Action Of Bronchial Thermoplasty In Asthma
Bronchial thermoplasty is an innovative treatment for asthma with evidence that it reduces asthma exacerbations. However, why treatment works is not completely understood. Our study aims to examine what happens at the airway and cell level, to improve the identification of patients that will benefit from treatment.
Chief Investigator: Sinthia Bosnic-Anticevich (University of Sydney)
Severe Asthma: Identifying Patterns Of Medication Taking Behavior In Primary Care
The Australian Centre for Asthma Monitoring (ACAM) Report 2011 indicates that poor asthma control is a common problem in both adults and children. While this data is significant, it does not reveal whether this burden arises from all asthma, or whether it is primarily driven by severe asthma. A better understanding of this is required to inform asthma management in primary care. Our project aims to define a framework to better characterise and identify severe asthma patients when they present to primary care based on their medication-taking behaviour.
Chief Investigators: Lorraine Smith & Helen Reddel (University of Sydney, Woolcock Institute of Medical Research)
A Systematic Review And Qualitative Analysis Of Patient Experiences Of Severe Asthma
A collaboration between researchers from the University of Sydney, the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research and the Health Experiences Research Group at Oxford University will conduct a systematic review on patient experiences of severe asthma. Our aims are: 1. Examine the published literature on patient experiences of severe asthma, to provide essential background and comparative data that will explore the patient’s perspective of living with and managing severe asthma. 2. Collaborate with the Health Experiences Research Group, Oxford University, to conduct an analysis of their data collection on personal experiences of asthma.
Chief Investigator: Peter Wark (University of Newcastle)
Inflammation Based Management Of Severe Asthma: Utility Of Blood Eosinophils
Patients with severe asthma, suffer on-going symptoms and acute flare-ups of their disease, despite treatment with often-high doses of medications. Currently their clinicians wait until their symptoms become much worse and/or their lung function falls precipitously before being able to act. In this study we will determine if measuring a marker of asthma activity with a simple blood test before asthma deteriorates badly, will allow better adjustment of treatment and avoid acute flare-ups of asthma in patients with severe disease.
