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The project aims to build capacity in regenerative medicine for children with respiratory diseases.
The delay in community transmission of the new Coronavirus in WA, together with the strict, social distancing measures that have been adopted, provide us with an opportunity to observe the level of immunity development to the virus within the community and assess the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on health and well-
Anthony Christopher David Ingrid Shannon Thomas Kicic Blyth Martino Laing Simpson Iosifidis BSc (Hons) PhD MBBS (Hons) DCH FRACP FRCPA PhD BSc PhD
Antimicrobial resistance is a global health crisis, which has accelerated due to the overuse of antibiotics.
Hallmarks of cystic fibrosis (CF) airway disease include bronchiectasis, airway inflammation by infiltrating polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) and recurring infection.
Once thought to be a simple barrier to the external environment, epithelial cells are involved in many repair and inflammatory processes that occur in childhood airway diseases.
ATP Binding Cassette Subfamily A Member 3 (ABCA-3) is a lipid transporter protein highly expressed in type-II alveolar (AT-II) cells. Mutations in ABCA3 can result in severe respiratory disease in infants and children. To study ABCA-3 deficiency in vitro, primary AT-II cells would be the cell culture of choice although sample accessibility is limited. Our aim was to investigate the suitability of primary nasal epithelial cells, as a surrogate culture model for AT-II cells, to study ABCA-3 deficiency.
The airway epithelium of children with wheeze is characterized by defective repair that contributes to disease pathobiology. Dysregulation of developmental processes controlled by Notch has been identified in chronic asthma. However, its role in airway epithelial cells of young children with wheeze, particularly during repair, is yet to be determined.
The epithelium is integral to the protection of many different biological systems and for the maintenance of biochemical homeostasis. Emerging evidence suggests that particular children have epithelial vulnerabilities leading to dysregulated barrier function and integrity, that resultantly contributes to disease pathogenesis.
There is controversy regarding whether cystic fibrosis (CF) airway epithelial cells (AECs) are intrinsically proinflammatory.