The CURE project is now in its third year of research, entering a period of evidence production. On August 4th, the first publication steaming from the project research was released, revealing an association between the changes in the respiratory microbiome and the disease state of asthma.
The results show that preschool children with asthma have a reduced level of bacteriophages in their airways in comparison to healthy individuals.
Given that bacteriophages are important regulators of the microbiome, their underrepresentation leads to an ecological imbalance of the respiratory tract. This compromises the resilience of the respiratory system towards asthma exacerbations.
At the same time, the level of certain viruses is higher among asthma patients, which increases the chance of a symptomatic infection or sustained inflammation.
“A central hypothesis of the project is if it will be possible to influence the microbiome so as to control inflammation in the respiratory tract in asthma. Unlike antibiotics, bacteriophage therapy can be used to target individual bacteria with high specificity.” - Prof. David L Robertson
You can read the publication here and the interview with Prof David L Robertson about the role of the microbiome in asthma here.
As an active member of CURE asthma, EFA is responsible for the project’s communication and dissemination activities. Amongst others, those include the publication of external newsletters, development and dissemination of informational materials and interviews to CURE partners.