Grant: Operating Grant - PA: Regional Partnership Program : Manitoba

Asthma is chronic inflammation of airways which is widespread worldwide. The most common chronic disease among children, it currently affects 300 million people worldwide with 250,000 annual deaths attributed to the disease. It is also estimated that there may be an additional 100 million more asthmatics by 2025. About 12% of Canadian children and 8% of the population aged 12 or older have been diagnosed with asthma We have recently discovered a new protein called semaphorin3E to be significantly reduced in asthmatics airways. We found also that semaphorin 3E have tremendous effect on cell involved in the formation of airway scar tissue. In this work, we want to investigate how semaphorin 3E inhibits asthmatic manifestation and evaluate its therapeutic potential in asthma. Determining the functional outcome of semaphorin3E in vivo will expand our understanding of asthma inception and evolution and may lead to develop novel anti-asthmatic strategies.