MRC & Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma

Contact Details

Norfolk Place

Paddington

St.Marys Campus

London W2 1PG

Telephone

020 7594 3764

Email

s.johnston@imperial.ac.uk

Profile

We successfully established a human rhinovirus challenge model of acute exacerbations of asthma (PNAS 2008) and a novel experimental model of rhinovirus infection and of rhinovirus induced acute exacerbations of asthma in mice (Nature Med 2008). We have recently discovered that people with asthma are more susceptible than normal people to rhinovirus infections, which seems to be explained by impaired innate interferon responses in vitro and in vivo (Lancet 2002, J Exp Med 2005 and Nature Med 2006). If asthma is a condition characterized by interferon deficiency, this clearly leads to the possibility of treating it with interferon's or by measures aimed at raising interferon levels in the lung. We are currently trying to understand why people with asthma have this deficiency. We are also interested in testing new treatment options and recently showed that an antibiotic drug has therapeutic benefit in acute asthma (NEJM 2006), we are now studying the possible mechanism of this beneficial effect.
My group consists of a mix of clinical an basic scientists trying to understand the causes and mechanisms of acute exacerbations of asthma in order to try to identify new treatment options for this major unmet clinical need. We have previously shown that viruses are the main precipitants (BMJ 1995, 1997, 2003, Lancet 2002, 2003) and that rhinoviruses are by far the major individual type involved.

MRC & Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma

Last modified: 04 December 2009 11:38