My laboratory is studying the mechanisms underlying asthma and therapeutic response among racially diverse populations. Asthma is a common respiratory disease caused by the interaction of genetic and environmental factors. Therapeutic response is known to vary among populations and is partly due to racial-specific genetic (pharmacogenetic) differences.

I have chosen to study Latino, African American and Filipino populations for three reasons: 1) these populations are understudied and often neglected from biomedical and genetic research, 2) the mixed ancestry of these populations provides unique opportunities in epidemiologic and genetic studies of complex traits and may be useful in untangling complex gene-environment (G x E) interactions in disease susceptibility and therapeutic response, 3) I believe that the examination of G x E interactions may help to explain the striking differences in asthma prevalence, asthma severity and drug responsiveness that are seen among racial and ethnic groups.

My research team represents a diverse group of individuals ranging from clinicians, geneticists, epidemiologist and molecular biologists. Together, we have demonstrated that the strongest predictor of asthma risk and therapeutic response to common asthma therapies among children is racial background. We found that this is, in part, determined by racial-specific differences in genetic and pharmacogenetic risk factors. To better understand the role that racial background plays in risk of disease and drug response, we, and others, have used ancestry informative genetic markers (AIMs) to directly measure the individual ancestry of our study participants. We then include this ancestry information in subsequent analyses. Using this approach, environmental factors that increase risk for disease in individuals with higher ancestry from one ancestral population may suggest that there are gene-environment interactions. In addition, we have demonstrated that variation in individual ancestry modifies asthma severity and pharmacogenetic associations among Latino and African American subjects. Finally, we have demonstrated that individual ancestry interacts with socioeconomic status to modify risk for asthma.

Our research has highlighted the scientific advantages of including racially diverse populations in biomedical and genetic research. Our work and those of others have provided important insight into the understanding of gene-environment interactions and their impact on racial/ethnic differences in asthma and drug response among racially diverse populations.