I. The identification of molecular sub-phenotypes of asthma and COPD: These studies are funded by:
1) An R01 from the NIH/NHLBI entitled “Immunometabolic phenotypes in adult severe asthma and disease progression.” (R01 HL146002) comprises the current NHLBI Severe Asthma Research Program (SARP). The SARP network’s mission is to improve the understanding of severe asthma in order to develop better treatments. Through the SARP longitudinal cohort, we are gaining insight into how severe asthma develops in patients and studying the molecular, cellular, and biological mechanisms that lead to different sub-phenotypes types of asthma.
2) A U01 from the NIH/NHLBI entitled “SPIROMICS II: Biological underpinnings of COPD heterogeneity and progression“ (U01 HL137880). The goal of SPIROMICS is to establish the biological underpinnings of COPD heterogeneity, progression, and exacerbations using a longitudinal cohort.
II. Mechanisms of airway inflammation and remodeling in lung diseases:
These studies apply innovative methods to human tissue samples obtained at fiberoptic bronchoscopy integrated with mechanistic studies using model systems. In work to date, we have applied these methods to study mechanisms of disease in asthma, COPD, and sarcoidosis. Ongoing work in this area is supported by the NIH/NIAID Asthma and Allergic Diseases Cooperative Research Center program (the AADCRC program) through a U19 grant entitled “Understanding Asthma Endotypes” (U19 AI077439) and the NIH/NHLBI through a P01 entitled “Innate and Adaptive Immune Responses in Th2 High Asthma” (P01 HL107202). Our approaches combine genomic methods (RNA-seq, single-cell RNA-seq, qPCR), design-based stereology (for quantitative measurement of tissue remodeling in human samples), flow cytometry, mass cytometry, and CRISPR.
III. Early COPD:
The Woodruff Lab is interested in the origins of COPD and pre-clinical phases of airway disease. In pursuit of this goal, we have initiated and are participating in a new longitudinal study entitled the SPIROMICS Study of Early COPD Progression (SOURCE) study (R01 HL144718) that is funded by the NIH/NHLBI, and a novel NIH/NHLBI-funded clinical trial entitled “Redefining Therapy In Early COPD: RETHINC” (U01 HL128952).
IV. Risk factors and disease mechanisms in COVID-19
The Woodruff Lab rapidly re-oriented its research efforts during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic to study risk factors for and mechanisms of severe disease in COVID-19. We helped to organize the UCSF COMET Study (https://www.comet-study.org/) which is funded in part by the NIH/NIAID (U19AI077439), in part by the UCSF CTSI, and in part by research collaboration with Genentech. In addition, the Woodruff Lab is participating in the Collaborative Cohort of Cohorts for COVD-19 Research or C4R Study (https://c4r-nih.org/) which is an NIH-funded nationwide study of more than 50,000 individuals to determine factors that predict disease severity and long-term health impacts of COVID-19.
Clinical trial support: Finally, the Woodruff Laboratory develops and implements clinical trials of novel therapeutic approaches to support sample analyses for clinical trials in asthma and COPD in both NIH and industry-supported studies. These sample analyses include measurement of changes in airway remodeling in response to specific therapeutic interventions, assessment of inflammation, and the application of biomarkers to enhance the interpretation of clinical trials.