Integrative genomics to identify novel therapeutics and biomarkers for COPD

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects 300 million people worldwide and is the third leading cause of death, responsible for over 3 million deaths per year. It is the number one reason why adults end up in hospitals. However, we do not have good drugs to treat patients with COPD. This is because we do not fully understand how and why COPD develops and progresses.

Smoking can cause COPD but not all smokers get the disease; our genes also play a role. Identifying which genes cause some people to get COPD or lead to disease worsening over time will allow us to understand these processes more and to develop new drugs to treat the disease.

This project will use sophisticated analysis tools called integrative genomics. First, we will identify regions of our DNA that are important for COPD risk and worsening over time. This will be done through studying DNA regions from thousands of subjects with and without the disease and on whom we have information on how well their lungs work. We will then identify the function of these DNA regions by uncovering their effect on gene products and proteins in tissues that are important and relevant for COPD such as lung and blood. These genes and their products will be tested in laboratories to confirm the findings. The goal is to use this information to monitor disease and will additionally allow us to interfere with these gene products to treat disease.