A £50M MRC Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) will bring together the Universities of Manchester & Oxford to study how environmental exposures cause chronic inflammatory disease. The CoRE will be Directed by Judi Allen (Manchester) & co-Directed by Fiona Powrie (Oxford). The Centre unites immunologists based at the Lydia Becker Institute for Immunology and Inflammation in Manchester and The Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in Oxford
Globally we face a crisis in chronic inflammatory diseases, such as asthma and inflammatory bowel disease. While these diseases are on the rise, the increases are not evenly distributed but disproportionately impact low-income communities worldwide. An important reason that these conditions are particularly severe in disadvantaged areas is that the environment is a major player. We have for decades been trying to understand how our genes drive these diseases but increasingly realise genetics are only a small part of the story. A person’s risk of developing a disease and how well they respond to treatment are determined by the interplay between our genes and the environment.
These environmental factors that interact with genes to drive disease are collectively called the exposome. The Exposome includes all the things that we are exposed to over our lifetime, including infections, pollution, smoking, diet and much more. Air pollution, both indoor and outdoor, is emerging as particularly important driver of many of these chronic inflammatory diseases. Much of our interaction with the environment occurs at the mucosal barrier in our lungs and intestines. These challenges can change how the immune system works, pushing some tissues into chronic inflammation and disease.
Although people diagnosed with a particular condition (e.g. asthma, Crohn’s disease, COPD) may present with similar symptoms, we do not currently consider their previous exposures, which may make them respond differently to treatments, or render some totally ineffective. We desperately need to understand the immunological impacts of the exposome to discover new therapies and refine our use of existing ones.
The Centre will embrace AI technology to interrogate large data sets, such as those from UK Biobank, patient cohorts and long-term studies in hospital clinics, and identify common pathways by which environmental factors disrupt the immune system. Findings will be tested through laboratory studies and by exposing healthy volunteers to pollutants and common viral infections, to untangle this complex path from exposure to disease.
The MRC Centre hopes to build a national network of researchers that focus on how the environment impacts our immune system, leading to more accurate diagnoses, better prevention, and more effective treatment options.
Press Releases:
- https://www.ukri.org/news/centre-to-study-how-exposome-causes-chronic-inflammatory-disease/
- https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/new-50m-mrc-centre-to-study-how-environmental-exposures-cause-chronic-inflammatory-diseases/
- https://www.kennedy.ox.ac.uk/news/new-ps50m-mrc-centre-to-study-how-environmental-exposures-cause-chronic-inflammatory-diseases