Prescott Woodruff & Joseph Arron Part 2: Asthma heterogeneity: biomarkers and drug development

Asthma is a heterogeneous disease with varying degrees of airway inflammation and variable response to treatment with inhaled corticosteroids. Woodruff and Arron describe experiments to develop a biomarker to detect asthma subtypes and determine which patients are likely to benefit from anti-inflammatory treatments. In the second lecture, Joe Arron reiterates the fact that asthma patients present with varying degrees of airway inflammation. Characterizing this heterogeneity objectively and consistently can be challenging. Arron describes how he and Woodruff, together with their collaborators, were able to determine that the serum level of a protein called periostin was a candidate predictive diagnostic biomarker for patients who might benefit from novel anti-inflammatory drugs including an IL13 inhibitor and an IgE inhibitor. Periostin is currently one of the biomarkers used to select patients for enrollment in clinical trials for two drugs candidates under development by Genentech.