Center for Childhood Asthma in the Urban Environment

城市环境儿童哮喘中心（CCAUE）的长期目标是了解暴露于室内和室外空气中的颗粒物和过敏原如何导致居住在巴尔的摩内城的哮喘儿童气道炎症和呼吸道疾病，并确定新的机会和策略来减少与这些暴露相关的发病率。指导该中心提出的研究的首要假设是，室内空气污染（颗粒物和过敏原）会增加氧化应激，从而导致儿童气道炎症和哮喘发病率增加。研究人员组建了一个多学科和综合的研究团队，研究氧化应激和气道炎症在哮喘发病率中的作用，以开发新的生物标志物，为易感基因型提供见解，提供更好的临床管理，并确定干预机会（环境和药理学）。

The long-term goal of the Center for Childhood Asthma in the Urban Environment (CCAUE) is to understand how exposures to indoor and outdoor airborne particulate matter and allergens may result in airway inflammation and respiratory morbidity in children with asthma living in the inner city of Baltimore and to identify novel opportunities and strategies to reduce morbidity associated with these exposures. The overarching hypothesis guiding the Center's proposed research is that indoor air pollution (particulate matter and allergens) produces increased oxidative stress which leads to increased airway inflammation and asthma morbidity in children. The investigators have assembled a multidisciplinary and integrated team of researchers to investigate the role oxidative stress, and airway inflammation in asthma morbidity in order to develop new biomarkers of effect, provide insight into susceptible genotypes, offer better clinical management, and to identify opportunities for intervention (environmental and pharmacologic). This program outlines a multidisciplinary program directed to address this hypothesis and long-term goal. This Center application includes the following two clinically-oriented and mechanistically-oriented research projects: Clinically-Oriented Research Projects: Project 1 - Domestic Indoor PM and Childhood Asthma Morbidity; Project 2 - Oxidative Stress/Inflammation during PM Nasal Challenge; and Mechanistically-Oriented Research Projects: Project 3 - Nrf2 Dependent Regulation of Oxidative Stress in Asthma; Project 4 - Mechanisms of PM-Induced Dendritic Cell Activation.