Convergence of Vitamin E, THC, Nicotine, Propylene Glycol and Glycerin Effects on Lung Inflammation When Vaped

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Since becoming an Associate Professor two and a half years ago, I think back to my years as an Assistant Professor and realize that my greatest moments of joy came from my mentee’s successes. Moments where they were awarded their first grant, obtained their first faculty position and a high-impact first authored paper was accepted all shine brightly in my memories. Equally important were the moments where a trainee came to see me because they were feeling unsuccessful or unmotivated, and they felt they were not going to succeed in academics, and through our conversation they arose, reassured about their good ideas, skill set and ability to move forward in a positive and productive way. Looking forward, I worry about the amount of time committed to administrative and clinical efforts and believe that obtaining protected time via this K24 will directly lead to development and enrichment in three areas: 1. Mentoring, 2. Conducting cutting-edge novel research, and 3. Learning new patient oriented research skills. I truly believe that expanding my time dedicated to mentorship will have the greatest impact out of the three, because enhancing and supporting the training of passionate, clever, dedicated trainees will lead to broader effects across medicine and academics relative to my research alone. In terms of research, e-cigarettes are drug delivery (vaping) devices that entered the country in 2007 and have exploded in terms of use, especially in adolescents and young adults whom have never smoked. We have no longitudinal data on the health effects of vaping, particularly on lung and systemic inflammation. By leveraging our existing cohort of young e-cigarette vapers at UCSD, the research proposed here can obtain longitudinal data by having these subjects return at 1 and 2 years, thus giving 3 timepoints across which changes in airway inflammation, microbiome and reactivity, and systemic inflammation can be defined. These data will help us understand which chronic diseases will arise from chronic e-cigarette use. Asthmatics are using e-cigarettes at a high rate, most likely because of the successful advertising campaigns tobacco companies have run, convincing many of the lack of adverse effects of these devices. But patients with asthma have airways and systemic inflammation, thus they are likely to be more susceptible to the pro-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects of vaping. By again leveraging the ongoing patient-oriented research conducted by our team, I propose here to recruit vaping and non-vaping subjects with TH2-high allergic asthma to assess the effects of e-cigarette aerosol inhalation on their underlying disease state. Finally, I propose to dive deeper into clinical research design and analysis, to improve my ability to conduct high level patient oriented research and thus yield the highest quality, relevant data possible. With the support of my own mentors (Drs. Atul Malhotra and Victor Nizet), the support of UCSD, my existing fantastic research team and the mentees to come, I believe the support of this K24 will make it possible to thrive as a mentor, researcher and life-long learner.