Project 1: Host Immune Response to Chronic Psoriasis Inflammation

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The overall goal of the CWRU Psoriasis Center of Research Translation (CORT) is to combine new bioinformatic methodologies with advanced murine and human experimental approaches to translate scientific findings into clinical applications that more nimbly advance therapy for psoriasis and related inflammatory comorbidities. Our highly innovative, synergistic and cross-disciplinary CORT will use a collaborative research project (CRP) as a central hub with bi-directional input from 2 highly interactive research cores, to refine and test hypotheses, identify and test repurposed drug leads and advance understanding of psoriasis and related inflammatory comorbidities. To do so, the CRP will integrate input from the: 1) Preclinical Modeling Core (PMC), that will provide and customize our many validated, unique transgenic psoriasiform animal models and translatable human xenograft approaches, essential to translating new mediator/pathway roles and drug leads; and the 2) Applied Meta-‘Omics Core (AMC), that will apply multi-platform (transcriptome, metabolome, micro/mycobiome) bioinformatics to individual patient and murine samples to identify novel pathway-specific targets. Iterative experimental testing of these targets and feedback from the PMC and CRP will identify novel pathways in psoriasis pathogenesis that are likely to benefit from intervention by new or repurposed drugs that will translate to psoriasis therapy. Our overarching hypothesis is that we can powerfully combine existing and developing psoriasis basic science datasets, patient records, bioinformatics and computational systems biology with bi-directional mouse and human studies to identify new therapeutic targets and repurposed drugs that can be expeditiously moved to clinical trials, improving psoriasis treatment and patient care. To test and refine this hypothesis, the Specific Aims are: (1) Identify new pathways central to psoriasis pathogenesis and new psoriasis drug candidates by analyzing psoriasis patients' EMR data, tissue and blood samples and; (2) Evaluate AMC-identified gene targets and efficacy of pathway-specific drug candidates using preclinical molecular genetic psoriasis mouse models. The concentrated interactions between the CRP and Cores will provide value-added research output, far beyond any incremental advances that a given Core or specific project could provide. Our novel, highly integrated and synergistic CORT design, powered by exceptional resources and expertise of our interdisciplinary translational investigative team, will exert a transformative and sustainable impact on the psoriasis field and patient care.