A longstanding University of Wisconsin project researching asthma in people living in the inner city got a $70 million grant, marking the largest award ever for the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
The grant will be used to continue research for the Inner-City Asthma Consortium, a nationwide research network that works on developing immune-based treatments for asthma, according to Gian Galassi, a spokesperson for UW Health and Clinics.
Galassi said the $70 million grant would run through 2021. The study began in 2002 and has since received the most funding for any research program at the UW-SMPH with a total of $190 million thus far.
The largest grant in our school's history will be used to continue an inner-city #asthma research project: http://t.co/2TOkauVCCm
— UW School of Medicine and Public Health (@uwsmph) November 10, 2014
William Busse, a professor of medicine at UW and an investigator in the study, said their goal is to stop the progression of asthma into a severe disease and reduce the prevalence and severity of asthma in inner-city children.
Between 8 to 10 percent of the people in the United States have asthma, but asthma rates are higher for children living in inner cities and children living under poverty, Busse said.
One reason is the exposure to cockroach and mice allergens, which causes them to develop allergies and asthma, he said.
“Asthma tends to have its beginnings in childhood,” Busse said. “Although you may have ups or downs with the disease, it is going to be there for a long period of time.”
A component of the research is to provide allergy immunotherapy to patients. Patients are given injections of allergens such as cockroach and mouse allergens, Busse said. Doses begin at very low levels and build up to higher amounts, and eventually people build up a tolerance to these allergens, he said.
Busse said they plan to start studies of allergy immunotherapy in children around four years old. When treatment begins early, it can lead to the prevention of the progression of asthma.
“In children who are young, it seems to also lead to prevention of asthma progressing,” he said. “If you do this for three years, then stop the treatment, these benefits can be lasting for a long period of time for a fair portion of these individuals.”
The development of allergy immunotherapy follows research done in a previous grant. Preliminary work to find the best dosages for the immunotherapy shots, and the best markers to follow to get a beneficial immune response, was done under the previous grant, Busse said.
The consortium also works on the Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma study, which has followed 500 inner-city children with at least one parent with asthma and allergies for seven years, from birth until the present, he said.
Of those 500 children, more than 30 percent have asthma, according to Busse. The study allows researchers to gain better insight on the various factors that make inner-city children at higher risk for asthma, he said.
