Dr. John Galgiani, director of the University of Arizona Valley Fever Center for Excellence and professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious diseases is doing research under a $2.27 million dollar grant to study the immuno-genetic reasons why some people fall deathly ill after contracting Valley Fever, while others remain relatively unaffected. Dr. Yves Lussier, previous associate director of the BIO5 Institute, and associate vice president and director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Biostatistics at the UA Health Science, is a co-investigator on the study specializing in big data and deciphering DNA sequences. Together they’ve determined that a gene mutation could be the reason why some are susceptible to fatal forms of Valley Fever, a novel discovery that will inform the creation of a preventative vaccine.

Dr. Monica Kraft, department chair and professor of medicine at the UA College of Medicine—Tucson, and Dr. Julie Ledford, assistant professor of medicine, began doing asthma research while Ledford was still a postdoctoral fellow at Duke University. Collaboratively, they have found that those with a higher BMI lack an important protein for people struggling with asthma, called SP-A. SP-A helps to reduce the lungs’ response to environmental irritants, like pollution. In their collective research, they were able to deduce that obese individuals have higher levels of cytokines that activate the immune system and suppress SP-A, thus leaving them with lower levels of this important protein. Without SP-A, asthmatics are unable to fight pathogens, making them more susceptible to lung infections. Along with Tech Launch Arizona, Kraft and Ledford are working to translate their discoveries into a new inhaler therapy that will revolutionize treatments for those with airway diseases.