VCU research team awarded NIH grant to study asthma, allergic disease

A team of Virginia Commonwealth University researchers has received a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases grant totaling nearly $7.3 million for a Cooperative Research Center to study various aspects of asthma and allergic disease.

Allergic disease is the sixth leading cause of chronic disease in the United States, and while various treatments have been developed to control allergy, no cure has been found.

The five-year, Cooperative Research Center project brings together four departments at VCU to study different aspects of asthma and allergic diseases.

"The collaborative nature of this center aims to create synergy between the various investigators and departments involved, and thereby facilitate a greater understanding of asthma and allergic diseases than could be achieved by each investigator working independently," said principal investigator Lawrence B. Schwartz, M.D., Ph.D., the Charles and Evelyn Thomas professor of medicine and chair of the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy & Immunology in the VCU Department of Internal Medicine.

There are four components to the study. In one project the team hopes to better understand how people with allergies can be desensitized; and a second project aims to dissect the molecular pathways involved in allergic inflammation. A third project will examine how the production of the allergy-causing antibody, IgE, is regulated, which may possibly lead to treatments that reduce its production. A fourth project examines a newly described lipid mediator of allergic inflammation. Agents that block this mediator have potential benefit to people with allergic conditions.

"Four centers were funded from more than 20 applicants, making this a highly competitive process. This is an example of how the cooperative environment at VCU can make us competitive with the best research universities in the United States," Schwartz said.

Schwartz will be collaborating with VCU researchers, John Ryan, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Biology; Dan Conrad, Ph.D., from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology; and Sarah Spiegel, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

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