Asthma, the chronic lung disease that inflames lungs and blocks breathing, affects tens of millions of people, as much as 8 to 10 percent of the U.S. population, and it's on the rise.

“The incidence of allergic diseases is rapidly increasing in the developed world,” says Mark Kaplan, associate professor of pediatrics and director of the Pediatric Pulmonary Basic Research in the Division of Pulmonology, Critical Care, and Allergy at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Thanks to a $5 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), Kaplan and colleagues are establishing an Asthma and Allergic Diseases Cooperative Research Center (AADCRC) at IU. The center's researchers will conduct basic and clinical research on the immunology underlying asthma as well as pursue improvements in the diagnosis, treatment, and effective prevention of asthma and allergic diseases.

IU's AADCRC, one of nine such centers in the United States , will explore the connection between atopic dermatitis, or eczema, and asthma. Asthma and the itchy skin disease of eczema are often found in combination. “While atopic dermatitis is rarely life-threatening, affected individuals suffer both physical and emotional discomfort,” Kaplan says, “And there is a high correlation between eczema in infants and the development of asthma later in life, a disease that can be far more debilitating.”

The IU research team will examine patient samples and animal models to study the factors that contribute to the onset and aggravation of atopic dermatitis. Their goal is to identify diagnostic biological markers or indicators that will help identify which children will be predisposed to developing asthma. “We hope to develop therapies that will help us be better able to treat current conditions and prevent patients from developing severe disease later in life,” Kaplan says.

The new NIAID grant greatly enhances the ongoing allergic disease research program at IU, which includes the work of Robert Tepper, the Mary Agnes Kennedy and Katheryn Kennedy Weinberger Professor of pediatrics, and Susan Perkins, associate professor of medicine. Tepper is conducting related research on the risk of asthma in infants with atopic dermatitis.