Rhinosinusitis in Asthma

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The candidate is an Assistant Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Vermont. She successfully completed research on a murine model of immune-mediated lung injury during her fellowship, but has now decided to pursue a career in patient-oriented research, in line with her clinical interest in asthma. Her long-term career goal is to become an independent investigator in the field of applied asthma research. Her research interest is to establish if disease in the upper airway (rhinitis and sinusitis) worsens asthma. To achieve her career goals, she has very specific educational goals for the current application. The candidate will take classes in biostatistics and ethics through the University of Vermont, and complement this with more advanced training in epidemiology and clinical research through the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. She will also take courses in Immunology to prepare her for the translational component of her research career plan. She will undertake closely supervised research projects that will give her practical experience in the skills she requires: these projects are designed to give her practical training in epidemiology, the performance of clinical trials, and training in laboratory methods to study inflammation and functional changes in the upper and lower airway of asthmatic subjects. She will initially establish the association between upper airway disease and clinical characteristics of asthma in an existing data set. She will then undertake a prospective General Clinical Research Center based study to determine the relationship between inflammation and functional changes in the upper airway and the presence of asthma. Finally she proposes a small-randomized-controlled trial to determine the efficacy of treating upper airway disease on measures of lower airway disease. The current proposal will prepare her for an independent career in patient-oriented translational research in the field of asthma. At the same time it will advance our understanding of the link between the upper and lower airway in asthma and the results of these studies will guide physicians caring for asthmatic patients.