Homer Boushey, MD, is a graduate of UCSF’s School of Medicine and its post-graduate training programs in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine, and is now a Professor of Medicine, Chief of the Division of Allergy/Immunology and Principal Investigator for the UCSF’s NIH-supported Asthma Clinical Research Network Center.
He has long been interested in the effects of inhaled materials on the function of the lungs and airways and in the mechanisms underlying the abnormal function of the airways in asthma, acute bronchitis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. His interests include the determinants of clinical response to infection with respiratory viruses, especially rhinovirus, the development of improved methods for delivery of drugs to the airways, the development of non-invasive methods for assessing bronchial mucosal inflammation, and the application of unbiased, parallel, high-throughput methods to detecting microbial infection unidentifiable through the application of current methods of culture, serologic testing, immunofluorescent staining, and PCR. He is particularly interested in the development of methods with the potential to improve the efficiency and quality of diagnosis, assessment, treatment, or delivery of care, including the development and validation of “biomarkers” predicting course of disease, prognosis, or responsiveness to different treatments.
Dr. Boushey is Chief of the Division of Allergy and Immunology at UCSF. He serves as the Director of the Research Review Committee for the Health Effects Institute, a federally-mandated, EPA funded institute charged with examining the health effects of the products of combustion of fuels, especially from mobile sources. He has served as well on the National Expert Panel for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma, and is a Past-President of the American Thoracic Society.
Asthma has come to
be regarded as a chronic inflammatory diseases of the
airways, but the causes, nature, and consequences of inflammation
are imprecisely understood. Working closely with Drs.
Fahy (Pulmonary), Avila (Allergy), Lazarus (Pulmonary),
and Janson (Pulmonary, School of Nursing), Dr. Boushey’s
research team has focused on methods for assessing airway
mucosal inflammation (eg., sputum induction), on examining
the effects of new, specifically targeted therapies (egs.,
monoclonal anti-IgE antibody, cell adhesion molecular
inhibitors), on comparing existing therapies (inhaled
corticosteroids, long-acting beta-agonists, and leukotriene
antagonists, given alone or in combination), and on defining
the mechanisms by which viral respiratory infection alters
upper and lower airway function.
Asthma occurs uniquely in humans, and while animal models offer
great promise for defining key steps in the pathophysiologic cascade
that accounts for the structural and functional changes in asthma,
confirmation of the relevance and importance of new findings ultimately
requires testing in humans with the disease. Conversely, new targets
for study through the application of genetic manipulation in murine
models sometimes are defined by observations made in human subjects.
The exchange of information between bench and clinical investigators
is facilitated by the development and application of tests based
on advances in molecular biology and genetics to the study of people.
The era of truly "translational" research is opening,
and will open first to centers where basic and clinical investigation
is closely integrated, and where basic and clinical investigators
have a tradition of exchange. Dr. Boushey regards these traditions
at UCSF as essential for his own success in clinical research, and
believes they also serve for the training of future academic investigators.
1. Bateman ED, Boushey HA, Bousquet J, Busse WW, Clark TJ, Pauwels RA, Pedersen SE; GOAL. “Can guideline-defined asthma control be achieved? The Gaining Optimal Asthma ControL study” Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2004Oct15;170(8):836-44.
2. Boushey HA, Sorkness CA, King TS, Sullivan SD, Fahy JV, Lazarus SC, Dailyversus as-needed corticosteroids for mild persistent asthma” New Eng EJ Med.2005;352(15)1519-28.
3. Stoloff SW, Boushey HA, “Severity, Control, and Responsiveness in
Asthma” J Allergy Clin Immunol 2006;117(3):544-48.
4. Amy Kistler, Pedro C. Avila, Silvi Rouskin1, David Wang, Theresa Ward, ShigeoYagi, David Schnurr, Don Ganem, Joe DeRisi, and Homer A. Boushey “Pan-viral Screening of Respiratory Tract Infections in Adults with and without AsthmaReveals Unexpected Coronavirus and Human Rhinovirus Diversity.” Journal ofInfectious Diseases; Sept
2007;196(6):817-825
5. Kistler A, Webster D, Rouskin S, Magrini V, Credle J, Schnurr D, Boushey HA,Mardis E, Li H, DeRisi JL. “Genome-wide diversity and selective pressure in thehuman rhinovirus.” Virology Journal May 2007, 4:40
6. Yoo J, Tcheurekdjian H, Lynch SV, Cabana M, Boushey HA. “Microbial manipulation of immune function for asthma prevention: inferences from clinical trials.” Proc Am Thorac Soc. 2007 July; 4(3):277-82
7. Woodruff PG, Boushey HA, Dolganov GM, Barker CS, Yang YH, Donnelly S, Ellwanger A, Sidhu SS, Dao-Pick TP, Pantoja C, Erle DJ, Yamamoto KR, Fahy JV.“Genome-wide profiling identifies epithelial cell genes associated with asthma andwith treatment response to corticosteroids.” Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2007 Oct2;104(40):15858-63. |
