Lectures and seminars KBH Astrid Seminar 18 September

Speaker

Young J. Juhn, MD, MPH, Professor of Pediatrics and a Clinician Investigator at the Mayo Clinic.

Title

"A New Understanding of Asthma Through Computational Phenotyping and Immune Phenotyping"

Abstract

In asthma care and research, the focus is on achieving asthma control, prevention of asthma exacerbation, and preserving lung function. There is evidence that the presence of asthma can influence patients’ susceptibility to infections. However, research in this aspect of asthma has been limited, and increased risk of asthmaassociated infectious and inflammatory multi-morbidities (AIMs) has not been considered or included in the study of asthma as an asthma outcome. I will discuss our research work on susceptibility to AIMs in patients with asthma and highlight that threats to the health of people with asthma by AIMs are largely unrecognized. Then, I will briefly explore the potential immunological mechanisms underlying AIMs. The conceptual understanding from our work and others may challenge the current paradigm, understanding asthma as a mere chronic airway disease. Then, the approach for how to identify this subgroup of asthmatics with distinctive characteristics including risk of AIMs will be discussed. Finally, I will introduce computational phenotyping using AI technologies as a tool for asthma care and research. As a use case, I will discuss Asthma-Guidance and Prediction System (A-GPS) as an AI-powered CDS for optimizing asthma care.