Molecular phenotyping for precision pharmacotherapy of asthma

Asthma ranks among the most common chronic diseases of industrialized countries.

Upwards of 20% of asthmatics present with difficult to control conditions that often respond poorly to current therapies, creating a significant unmet need to optimize individual patient treatment.

Asthma is a general term used for a broad spectrum of loosely defined clinical conditions for which there is no defined biochemical description.

Metabolomics provides a real-time indicator of biological status, reflecting the integrated result of genetic and environmental interactions, as well as treatment responses, making it ideally suited for molecular characterization of asthma. This project will use metabolomics to identify molecular phenotypes of severe airway disease.

We will perform the largest meta-analysis of metabolomics to date consisting of tens-of-thousands of individuals, which will be complemented with metabolomics and lipid mediator analysis of treatment interventional studies.

These data will be integrated using novel bioinformatics approaches to identify key metabolites that discriminate phenotypes and treatable endotypes. This information will be used to develop a targeted assay for asthma molecular phenotyping. The assay will be tested in validation cohorts to determine accuracy in stratifying individuals for treatment.

The development of a high-throughput targeted molecular phenotyping panel will enable clinical translation and actualize precision medicine treatment for asthma.