Creighton University School of Medicine has been conducting lung disease research for over 30 years. This program project proposal brings together five investigators from three different departments. Drs Tu, Abel and Casale have an active collaboration involving both translational and basic research studies of asthma. Dr. Tu’s lab examining P-Rex1 knockout mice found that loss of P-Rex1 causes pulmonary hyper-innervation that contributes to airway dysfunction of lung disease. More importantly, they found that the inflammatory cytokine interleukin (IL)-6, a key mediator in cigarette smoke-related lung disease, down-regulated P-Rex1. Together, they will explore the role of P-Rex1 in early-life cigarette smoke exposure-induced airway disorders. This is directly related to Dr. Abel’s project identifying molecular and cellular triggers of cigarette smoking-related pulmonary hypertension because cigarette smoking-induced inflammation also stimulates pulmonary vascular innervation that may also be associated with pulmonary hypertension. Each project, while unique, benefits from the interaction between all investigators.
We have recently received a four-year NIH R01 award to support these studies. Our collaborations will enable us to further investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms common to the pathogenesis of lung diseases such as asthma, COPD and PH, focusing on those related to cigarette smoke. Our immediate objective is provide a platform to stimulate basic and clinical researchers at Creighton University to work more closely, to expand our community of lung disease-related basic scientists and clinicians, and to enrich the overall research environment. By integrating researchers in different areas within and outside Creighton in a cohesive research program, we expect to provide synergistic interactions and opportunities to improve research and extramural funding. Furthermore, we will continue to collaborate with a number of basic and clinical researchers within and outside Creighton University.