Medicine-resistant asthma?

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Asthma is treatable with diet and lifestyle changes as well as with prescription medicine. However, some asthma is resistant to current medical treatment. It’s known as “refractory” asthma, and now it’s getting the attention of Creighton University researchers, thanks to a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Yaping Tu, PhD, professor of pharmacology and neuroscience in the Creighton University School of Medicine, is leading the $1.7 million grant-funded study. Results from his study, “A Novel Approach to Target Neutrophilic Airway Inflammation and Airway Hyperresponsiveness in Therapy-Resistant (Refractory) Asthma,” will be eagerly anticipated. 

Specifically, the study will determine the mechanisms by which a key protein modulates the components of asthma and whether that protein can be inhibited, ameliorating the airway inflammation and hypercontraction. These are the hallmarks of human refractory asthma. 

Long-term, Dr. Tu’s study seeks to learn more about the molecular mechanisms of therapeutic resistance and to develop new strategies to overcome such resistance in refractory asthma. 

According to Dr. Tu, students have played a key role in his research projects. Over the last four years, graduate students, undergraduate students and postdoctoral fellows have maintained Creighton’s long-standing history of involving students in research projects. 

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