Preliminary study on the expression of miRNAs related to asthma

Asthma is a devastating disease with high numbers of affected people worldwide. The disease is marked by lung changes, breathing difficult and exaggerated responses to non-toxic substances. Infections are a common trigger of both asthma outbreaks and asthma development. In particular, the common cold virus that usually causes only a sore throat, cough and a runny nose can drive severe infection in asthmatics and lead to hospitalization and even death. To date the reason why asthmatics suffer so badly with the common cold is unknown and, importantly, there is no clear marker of common cold infected lungs that could significantly help diagnosis and treatment.

In this project we set out to infect lung cells with the common cold virus and determine what was changed between infected and healthy cells. We aim to carry out a preliminary study on the effect of different asthma triggers (e.g. Rhinovirus) on healthy and infected immune cells looking at the expression of different miRNAs related to asthma. This data will be used
for external applications in collaboration with other institutes.