Treating the right asthma patient the correct way

GO-IL33: translating asthma genetics into cellular targets to address the IL-33 pathway

In the GO-IL33 project, UMCG and GSK work together with the aim to use genetic polymorphisms in the IL33/IL1RL1 pathway to inform on mechanisms of asthma and to guide the identification of patients that will respond to therapeutic interventions in this pathway as well as biomarkers to monitor the treatment response.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways that cannot be cured. Asthma affected an estimated 262 million people worldwide, and caused almost half a million deaths in 2019. The disease is the most common chronic disease in childhood, and leads to many days lost in school or at work. Symptoms of asthma can be suppressed by current medication, but up to 20% of the patients do not respond well and have severe or uncontrolled disease.

Better asthma treatments are urgently needed, and one new target for which drugs are being developed is the pro-allergic cytokine IL-33. The GO-IL33 project aims to use identify the patients that are likely to profit most from these novel drugs by studying how the genetic polymorphisms in the IL33/IL1RL1 pathway regulates the allergic inflammatory mechanisms underlying the disease. The GO-IL33 project will identify the cells that are most sensitive to IL33, and most likely to respond to intervention, as well as biomarkers to monitor such treatment response.

Summary
The GO-IL33 project uses primary cells from asthma patients and controls, stratified for genetic polymorphisms in the IL33/IL1RL1 pathway to chart how IL33 can aggravate effector functions of innate and adaptive immunity in allergic inflammation. These data are combined with genomic and (single-cell) transcriptomic studies to predict responders versus non-responders to anti-IL33 treatment, and to identify biomarkers that can be used to monitor treatment response.
Technology Readiness Level (TRL)
1 - 3
Time period
48 months
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