Severe Asthma Research Program - Wake Forest University

The mission of the SARP is to improve the understanding of severe asthma to develop better treatments. The SARP will gain a better understanding of asthma and its endotypes, in children and adults, by defining the disease at the molecular and cellular levels in the context of the temporal phenotypic expression of the disease. To this end, the SARP investigators will utilize both mechanistic and evoked phenotype approaches to: 1) characterize developmental molecular, cellular and physiologic phenotypes in children and adults with mild to severe asthma, and 2) to further elucidate the evolving pathobiology and pathogenesis of severe asthma and its sub-phenotypes and 3) compare these features over time. This approach involves a shared longitudinal protocol conducted across all participating centers which includes common information on all SARP participants. Additionally, SARP investigators have each identified mechanistic research questions to be included in the shared longitudinal protocol. At Wake Forest University investigators are specifically interested in genetic influences on disease severity and the use of statistical modeling techniques to better understand disease phenotypes. Together, these longitudinal and mechanistic approaches will enable prediction of phenotype stability/fluctuation and pharmacologic responses and identification of novel, disease-modifying targets for treatment.