W is for the World's Leading Asthma Research Center

Humans take on average 16,000 breaths per day and, safe to say, take almost all of them for granted. That is, until disease constricts their airways and leaves them gasping both for air and for answers.

Asthma is one such chronic lung disease and as it has increased its chokehold on an estimated 17 million Americans - five million of whom are children - UCSF's three-year-old Sandler Center for Basic Research in Asthma has mobilized to unmask its biology and derail its advance. More than 20 medical school faculty members have now been provided direct support for their asthma-related research through the Sandler Center's competitive grants program. To date, 22 grants have been awarded. While each recipient focuses on different aspects of what is essentially an allergic reaction to particles breathed through the air, their combined goal is to halt the spread of a disease that results in nearly two million emergency room visits - and 5,000 deaths - each year.

The Sandler Center, which is now recruiting a permanent director, also supports and encourages other asthma-related research at UCSF through its core facilities. These include the transgenic mouse physiology and morphology core, the functional genomics core and the genotyping core (in conjunction with the Program in Human Genetics). All of these facilities are widely used by the UCSF scientific community. Says the Center's acting director Dean Sheppard, "We have been providing state- of-the-art technology to interest UCSF faculty in asking questions related to asthma."

And many questions there are, not the least of which is what explains the sudden increase in asthma. Theories abound, from increased levels of air pollution, the degree and nature of pathogens to which our immune systems are exposed in a more hermetically sealed world, even a decline in the amount of exercise. Whatever the ultimate answer, an expanding roster of UCSF researchers, in laboratories located both at Mission Bay and in newly released space on the Parnassus Heights campus, will be examining a host of possibilities to find it first. As Sheppard remarks, "We hope to establish UCSF as the world's leading asthma research institution."

by Jeff Miller