Researchers
Associated researchers
Professor Mukhopadhyay and colleagues have made significant progress within a short space of time from the exploration of new mechanisms in children's asthma to benefit for patients.
His recent study has confirmed his previous findings to show that common asthma reliever drugs taken by millions of children around the world may increase the risk of asthma attacks in some patients with a particular genetic make-up. He found that salbutamol, a popular blue inhaler medicine, as well as salmeterol, a long-acting version also in common use, are less effective in children with a specific gene variant and may in some cases make their asthma worse.
He has discovered several other new pathways contributing to poor asthma control in children. Some of this work has sparked off research into a better understanding of the underlying functional defects and the development of new interventions. For example, the discovery of the link between filaggrin gene defects and childhood atopy and asthma has led to much work on understanding how asthma and allergy develops and the search for novel therapies.
The work has received international recognition, having been prominently reported by news media such as The Times, The Guardian, Australian Broadcasting Corporation and TIME. It was highlighted in Robert Winston's programme on How Science Changed The World (BBC, Christmas 2010) as a key example of the translation of Human Genome Project research to clinical benefit for patients.
The paediatric reseach team is based at the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital in Brighton.