The Chupp Laboratory

Our lab focuses on the Pathogenesis of airway diseases with a focus on asthma and asthma severity, the role of chitinases in the development and severity of asthma, and expression and genotype-phenotype relationships of novel inflammatory molecules.

1. Molecular Phenotyping of Asthma Severity: In this project we are characterizing 200 asthmatics and collecting induced sputum and peripheral blood for genome-wide expression profiling to identify gene profiles that associated with asthma severity and common to both the peripheral blood and lung.
2. Gene expression profiles associated with CHI3L1 genotypes and YKL-40 levels in asthma: From the population described above, we are determining the biologic pathways associated with genetic polymorphisms we have determined are associated with asthma and asthma severity.
3. Expression profiles associated with responsiveness to Xolair. Using the profile we have developed for the gene expression study, we will determine the gene profiles that altered in response to treatment with Xolair.