# Uncovering Biologic Mechanisms of Severe Asthma

> **NIH NIH K23** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2020 · $177,282

## Abstract

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7. Project Summary
This K23 application will support my plan to build a research career in mechanism-oriented clinical research in
asthma. Specifically, a K23 will provide me with the support necessary to accomplish the following goals: (i) to
build a patient-centered research program focused on discovering the mechanistic underpinning of disease
heterogeneity in asthma; (ii) to learn methods of translational clinical research, including design of clinical
research studies with mentoring in epidemiology and biostatistical methods; (iii) to learn molecular methods,
including immunoassays and gene transcription profiling; (iv) to advance my knowledge of immunology,
cellular biology, and molecular biology to improve my ability to generate hypotheses for disease endotypes in
asthma. To achieve these four goals, I have assembled a strong mentoring team and a rigorous and innovative
research plan centered on metabolic dysfunction and aging as a mediators of severe asthma:
Mentoring Team: John Fahy, M.D., (primary mentor) has expertise in mechanism-oriented research in asthma
and in airway epithelial cell biology. Dr Fahy has previously been the primary mentor for four pulmonary fellows
who have been awarded K grants. Prescott Woodruff, M.D., MPH is a clinical researcher in airway disease
with particular expertise in asthma, clinical research and epidemiology, and in the analysis of complex data
sets that arise in genomics-based studies of gene expression. Jeoung-Sook Shin, PhD. is an immunologist
with expertise in dendritic cell biology and a disease focus on asthma. Her laboratory is experienced in how to
apply multi-color flow cytometry to the analysis of immune cells in human biospecimens; Charles McCulloch,
Ph.D. is an expert in biostatistics with a focus in the statistical methods for longitudinal analysis, mixed models,
and latent class models. Suneil Koliwad. M.D., PhD. Is an endocrinologist who studies the role of obesity
associated chronic inflammation in the development of type-2 diabetes and activation of innate immune cells.
Research Plan: Developing successful treatments for severe asthma will require a more nuanced
understanding of the molecular pathways that lead to severe disease. Increased airway type-2 inflammation is
a well-established pathway in asthma, but very little is known regarding the other non-type pathways that drive
severe asthma. Studies that have systematically examined disease heterogeneity in asthma find that older age
and high body weight are features of more severe asthma, and these features provide clues about disease
mechanisms. For example, I recently found that systemic IL6 inflammation occurs in a subset of asthmatics
characterized by older age, obesity, metabolic dysfunction, and severe asthma. In this K23 application I will
further explore the clinical, metabolic, and inflammatory features of severe asthma in the NHLBI Severe
Asthma Research Program (SARP) with an emphasis on longitudinal analyses and a focu...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9986874
- **Project number:** 5K23HL138303-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** Michael Peters
- **Activity code:** K23 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $177,282
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-08-01 → 2022-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9986874

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9986874, Uncovering Biologic Mechanisms of Severe Asthma (5K23HL138303-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9986874. Licensed CC0.

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