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The Children’s Respiratory Science group’s research has an emphasis on mechanisms of respiratory health in children including those that predict and underpin acute viral respiratory infections in children.
The greatest threat to children’s health in the future is environmental change, including climate change. The Future Child Health project aims to quantify how current and future environmental changes affect child health.
Large numbers of children need emergency medical treatment each year for respiratory illnesses, particularly for wheezing and asthma.
The epithelium is integral to the protection of many different biological systems and for the maintenance of biochemical homeostasis. Emerging evidence suggests that particular children have epithelial vulnerabilities leading to dysregulated barrier function and integrity, that resultantly contributes to disease pathogenesis.
Acute wheezing is one of the most common hospital presentations for young children. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and rhinovirus (RV) species A, B and the more recently described species C are implicated in the majority of these presentations. However, the relative importance and age-specificities of these viruses have not been defined.
An NHMRC grant exploring epigenetic factors that affect wheezing and asthma development.