The ASPIRE Path in Molecular Medicine

My current research studies the effect of sex hormones and obesity on severe asthma. I currently use a house dust mite allergen challenge mouse model to show allergic airway inflammation and to study the role and effects of this inflammation on T cells, as well as neutrophils and eosinophils which are all part of the inflammatory immune response. These mice are also placed on a high fat diet to induce obesity and to study if obesity increases the effects of severe asthma. I think this research can be applied to human subject research studies and it would be great if obese human subjects with and without asthma could be utilized to further observe how an obese state can affect the various genders. A clinical trial could be started to gather these patients and be made part of my research thesis which would be a great help. PBMCs from asthmatics and healthy patients could be collected to study the differences seen in humans, therefore adding a translational aspect to my research. I can also conduct experiments on a T-cell metabolism specific panel on excised lymph node cells from obese and non-obese men and women (ages 18-60).