| Publications :: | Professor
of Pediatrics Division of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology 
Asthma is an important childhood chronic illness that results in significant
morbidity and even death in children. Over time chronic inflammation
causes an airway remodeling process that occurs in young children
with severe asthma. This remodeling process includes an excess growth
of smooth muscle, which in turn plays a critical role in causing over-reactive
airways. The focus of Dr. Betty Lew’s laboratory research is to determine
how this process of excess growth of smooth muscle cells occurs in
asthma. She has found that certain inflammatory marker enzymes cause
smooth muscle to grow, and this process is dependent on airway smooth
muscle mannose receptors (ASM-MR). The full cloning and overexpression
of these receptors in a transgenic mouse model have been completed
in Dr. Lew’s laboratory. Further studies on the cloned receptors
and physiologic studies in this animal model will lead eventually
to treatments targeted to the process of excess airway smooth muscle
in children with asthma. |
Redding A, Lew DB, Conley ME, Pivnick EK. An infant with erythroderma, skin scaling, chronic emesis and intractable diarrhea. Clin Pediatr (Phila). 2009 48(9):978-980 T.G. Sternberg, J.W. Thompson, R.A. Schoumacher and D.B. Lew. Recurrent stridor in a 9-year-old child after a choking event. Allergy Asthma Proceedings 2009 Aug 18. [Epub ahead of print] |
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