Are Rhinitis and Asthma the Result of One Syndrome in Two Parts of the Respiratory System?
When physician researcher Xiaoyang Hua, MD, PhD, joined the faculty of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology at McGovern Medical School, he brought with him a $3.2-million National Institutes of Health R01 grant to develop an understanding of the immune mechanisms that drive chronic inflammatory diseases in the upper and lower airways. The grant will form the core of the Hua Lab, which investigates the immunology of chronic inflammatory diseases in the head and neck area.
“We know that upper respiratory virus infections are responsible for 80% of asthma attacks, but we don’t yet understand the underlying mechanisms,” says Dr. Hua, who joined the department as an associate professor in May 2024 from the University of Iowa. “We don’t know if asthma attacks result only from direct viral infection in the lower airway and lungs, from those in the nose and upper airway – or in both. Our data from previous studies suggest that nasal mucosa can regulate lung immunity with nose-lung cross talk that makes rhinitis and asthma interdependent. We’re hoping to discover if rhinitis and asthma are the manifestations of one syndrome in two parts of the respiratory system.”
With the NIH grant, Dr. Hua and his research team aim to define the immune mechanisms underlying the nose-lung cross talk after nasal viral infection. They also hope to determine the physiology of airway inflammation after nasal viral infection using an experimental asthma model. The grant is funded through March 2028.
“Our goal is to find novel preventive strategies and therapies for people with asthma, and to expand our understanding of the nasal mucosal immune system,” Dr. Hua says. “We hope our research ultimately will lead to the development of a nasal vaccine against airborne pathogens.”
As a principal investigator, Dr. Hua has secured grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01, R21, and K12), Duke University, and the University of Iowa, to propel his research forward. He is author or co-author of numerous abstracts and articles and has been invited to lecture nationally and internationally. He has served in editorial roles for several journals and is a grant reviewer for the National Institutes of Health’s Lung Respiratory, Cardiac, and Circulatory Sciences Review Branch. Dr. Hua is certified by the American Board of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons.