New asthma treatment being trialled at UQ

Researchers at The University of Queensland’s (UQ) School of Biomedical Sciences are testing a new drug that has the potential to reverse or slow the development of asthma, as opposed to current drugs which just ease the symptoms of the disease.

The drug has been developed by pharmaceutical company Pfizer and targets a protein called IL-33, which was found to play a significant role in the development of asthma in recent UQ research.

“While IL-33 is well known for causing bronchial inflammation in asthmatics, our research demonstrated for the first time that it also weakens the ability of asthmatics to fend off respiratory viral infections, a common trigger of asthma attacks,” said research team leader Associate Professor Simon Phipps.

“We’re hopeful the new drug will be able to reverse or slow down the development of asthma by blocking the IL-33 protein.”

Dr Jason Lynch, a co-lead author on the study, said the team’s discovery stemmed from a preclinical model that he established in mice to understand why co-exposure to respiratory viruses and allergens was a key driver of asthma development in early life.

“We found exposure to a respiratory virus, followed very closely by exposure to an allergen, induced the release of IL-33,” Dr Lynch said.

“The excess IL-33 protein was found not only to hinder recovery from the virus, but also to promote the development of more severe and persistent symptoms of the disease.

“However, if mice were exposed to an allergen at a time before contracting the virus, it made no difference to their recovery process.”

The UQ research has been published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.