The Integrative Genomics of Acute Asthma Control
Lead PI
- Benjamin Raby, Harvard University / Brigham & Women’s Hospital
Co PIs
- Frank Gilliland, University of Southern California
Abstract
Failure to maintain tight asthma symptom control is a major health-related cause of lost school and workdays. This project aims to use novel statistical network-modeling approaches to model the molecular basis of poor asthma control in a well-characterized cohort of asthmatic patients with available genetic, gene expression, and DNA methylation data. Using this data, we will define an asthma-control gene network, and the genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors that determine inter-individual differences in asthma control.
The over-arching hypothesis of this project is that inter-individual differences in asthma control result from the complex interplay of both environmental, genomic, and socioeconomic factors organized in discrete, scale-free molecular networks. Though strict patient compliance with asthma controller therapy and avoidance of environmental triggers are important strategies for the prevention of asthma exacerbation, failure to maintain control is the most common health-related cause of lost school and workdays. Therefore, better understanding of the molecular underpinnings and the role of environmental factors that lead to poor asthma control is needed. Using the Asthma BioRepository for Integrative Genomic Exploration (Asthma BRIDGE), we will perform a series of systems-level genomic analyses that integrate clinical, environmental and various forms of “omic” data (genetics, genomics, and epigenetics) to better understand how molecular processes interact with critical environmental factors to impair asthma control.