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The Respiratory Environmental Health team conducts research in early life determinants of lung growth and development, respiratory environmental health, and mechanisms of airway dysfunction in asthma and other respiratory disease.
The Foundations of Lung Disease Team is focused on improving the diagnosis, treatment, and lifelong care of childhood lung disease.
We’ve heard from families that trustworthy information about preterm-associated lung disease is difficult to find. In response, we’ve created resources to empower families with the knowledge they need to manage these challenges.
This project investigates how different populations of cells within the respiratory tract immune system are altered during a viral infection.
Asthma affects > 10% of children in Australia and New Zealand (NZ), with up to 5% of those having severe disease, presenting a management challenge. We aimed to survey tertiary paediatric respiratory services across Australia and NZ using a custom-designed questionnaire, to conduct a cross-sectional observational study of the numbers of children with problematic severe asthma seen, the number treated with biologic therapy, outpatient clinic/multidisciplinary team services available, investigations and tools routinely used and approaches utilised for transition to adult care.
Shannon Elizabeth Simpson Smith BMedSci (hons), PhD PhD, MSc, BSc Head, Strong Beginnings Research, Co-head Foundations of Lung Disease Program
Obesity is a contributing factor to asthma severity; while it has long been understood that obesity is related to greater asthma burden, the mechanisms though which this occurs have not been fully elucidated. One common explanation is that obesity mechanically reduces lung volume through accumulation of adipose tissue external to the thoracic cavity.
Lung transcriptomics studies in asthma have provided valuable information in the whole lung context, however, deciphering the individual contributions of the airway and parenchyma in disease pathogenesis may expedite the development of novel targeted treatment strategies. In this study, we performed transcriptomics on the airway and parenchyma using a house dust mite (HDM)-induced model of experimental asthma that replicates key features of the human disease.
This article provides a contemporary report on the role of adipose tissue in respiratory dysfunction. Adipose tissue is distributed throughout the body, accumulating beneath the skin (subcutaneous), around organs (visceral), and importantly in the context of respiratory disease, has recently been shown to accumulate within the airway wall: "airway-associated adipose tissue." Excessive adipose tissue deposition compromises respiratory function and increases the severity of diseases such as asthma.
Despite advances in asthma therapeutics, the burden remains highest in preschool children; therefore, it is critical to identify primary care tools that distinguish preschool children at high risk for burdensome disease for further evaluation.