Meet the editor

Svetlana Chapoval, MD, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Center for Vascular and Inflammatory Diseases, University of Maryland School of Medicine. She is a member of the Program in Oncology at the Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Chapoval obtained an MD from Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University and a Ph.D. from Gamaleya Scientific

Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Moscow, Russia. After her postdoctoral training in immunology at the Mayo Clinic and junior research faculty appointment in Pulmonary Medicine at Yale University, she joined the University of Maryland School of Medicine to continue her research on immunogenetics and immunoregulatory mechanisms of asthma pathophysiology. She established new research programs aimed at defining selected semaphorins as immune checkpoints and regulators of inflammation in immune-mediated diseases. Dr. Chapoval founded SemaPlex LLC to translate her research into preclinical development and clinical applications.

Contents

Molecules

Asthma and COVID-19 *by Gulfidan Uzan*

*by Aşkın Gülşen*

**Preface XI**

**Chapter 1 1**

**Chapter 2 21**

**Chapter 3 31**

**Chapter 4 45**

**Chapter 5 61**

**Chapter 6 79**

Epigenetic Regulation of Th2 Response in Asthma by Non-Coding RNAs

Costimulation in Allergic Asthma: The Roles of B7 and Semaphorin

Personalized Digital Phenotype Score, Healthcare Management and Intervention Strategies Using Knowledge Enabled Digital

*by Yanhua Niu, Chao Wang, Xiaoyan Dong and Nanbert Zhong*

Asthma Phenotypes and Current Biological Treatments

*by Callen Kwamboka Onyambu, Angeline Anyona Aywak, Sarah Kemunto Osiemo and Timothy Musila Mutala*

Anaphylactic Reactions in Radiology Procedures

*by Svetlana P. Chapoval and Andrei I. Chapoval*

Health Framework for Pediatric Asthma *by Utkarshani Jaimini and Amit Sheth*

## Contents


Preface

Asthma is a chronic lung disease characterized by episodes of airway narrowing and obstruction, causing wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath [1]. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) in the United States specifies why asthma research is its priority. Asthma significantly reduces the quality of life. In addition to high medical expenses, asthma has substantial effects on work/school attendance and performance. Patients with asthma exacerbation often require emergency room visits and/or hospitalization. NIAID is especially committed to reducing the burden of this disease and its complications by supporting targeted research aimed at understanding asthma mechanisms, developing new prevention and treatment strategies, and understanding the involvement of environmental factors and human genetics in asthma initiation, progression,

Asthma is a Th2-driven systemic immunologic disease manifesting in lung pathology. Several factors bias the development of Th2 response to air pollution, traffic emissions, ozone, cigarette smoke, changes in the microbial environment, nutrition, and increased exposure to allergens [2]. NIAID supports research programs aimed at identifying the factors that contribute to asthma development and severity. It funds the Inner City Asthma Consortium (ICAC), a nationwide clinical network that conducts asthma research in nine US cities [3]. One of the studies from this Consortium determined the differences in clinical characteristics between easy-to-control and difficult-to-control asthma [4]. There was a relatively equal distribution of such asthma cases among the study participants, whereas around 22% of them fell into neither group. The study clearly points to allergen sensitizations as a major trigger of asthma exacerbations and the direct association of poorly controlled asthma with bronchodilator responsiveness, pulmonary physiology, rhinitis, and atopy. The more recent international study on the role of allergy in severe asthma by the Allergy and Asthma Severity EAACI Task Force was published in 2016 as a position document [4]. The document, in part, states that the proportion of severe asthma cases related to allergen exposure may be overestimated and other triggers such as fungal sensitization, smoking, and pollution contribute to severe asthma and must be considered during disease

The discussion by the international research expert group at the World Health Organization (WHO) meeting on the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and asthma was published in the journal Vaccine [5]. The main conclusions of the article are: (a) the casual association between lower respiratory tract infection with RSV and recurrent wheeze of early childhood in asthma is not fully established and requires further investigations; (b) there is no sufficient evidence that RSV monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and potential future RSV vaccines will have a significant effect on asthma outcomes; and (c) there is a substantial public health threat from a severe acute RSV disease in young children, which requires the development of

and severity.

**Asthma triggers**

evaluation in patients.

good clinical practice guidelines.
