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Key DiscoveryIdentifying Patients at Risk of an Allergic Asthmatic Response

Feb 1, 2018

Allergic asthma is the most common type of asthma. Some allergic asthma patients experience an allergen-induced late-phase asthmatic response (LAR), which is characterized by airway contraction, airway inflammation, mucus hypersecretion, airway remodeling, and more severe symptoms than the initial reaction. It is a challenge for physicians to correctly identify which patients will develop these late phase responses to provide proper management and treatment.

Using the CFI, BCKDF, and St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation funded new Nanostring Elements platform, a state-of-the-art instrument that simultaneously measures a panel of DNA and RNA molecules, Dr. Tebbutt and his team have developed and validated a blood test that can accurately predict whether a patient will undergo a LAR. The Trinity biomarker panel simultaneously measures 14 RNA transcripts found in the blood to discriminate between responses from different allergic asthma patients. The Trinity biomarker panel resulting from this study will help stratify heterogeneous patient groups, select therapies, reduce overtreatment, identify new drug targets, improve the efficacy of clinical trials, and accelerate the availability of novel medications for allergic asthma patients.

Read the full study here.