News

Chandler Jensen-Cody awarded NIH National Research Service Award Fellowship

Chandler Jensen-Cody, PhD, received a prestigious F32 fellowship award from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. Chandler joined the Erle lab in 2021 after completing his Ph.D. work in John Englehardt's group at the University of Iowa. His new award provides three years of support for…

Kirsten Hargett awarded NIH Diversity Supplement

Congratulations to Kirsten Hargett, an SRA who joined our lab in 2021, for receiving an NIH Diversity Supplement to David Erle's R35 award from the NHLBI. Kirsten is a recent University of Washington graduate who is gaining experience that will prepare her for pursing MD/PhD studies. She is also a…

New findings may help explain risk of COVID in asthma

Despite initial concerns that individuals with asthma would be highly susceptible to COVID-19, most studies show no clear increase in risk. We now report that stimulation of human bronchial epithelial cells with the central asthma mediator IL-13 inhibits SARS-CoV-2 infection of these cells.

New flow cytometry tools for analyzing and isolating human bronchial epithelial cell subsets

Leveraging single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) data in combination with known cell type-specific markers, Luke Bonser and his team developed panels of antibodies to characterize and isolate the major airway epithelial subsets (basal, ciliated, and secretory cells) from human bronchial epithelial…

Cystic Fibrosis Foundation supports new gene therapy collaboration with UC Berkeley and the Innovative Genomics Institute

Most patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) can now be treated with combinations of drugs that help the mutant CFTR protein reach the cell surface and function more normally. However, many less common CFTR mutations cause forms of CF that cannot be treated using currently available drugs. Advances…

Efficient CRISPR-based gene targeting enables mechanistic studies in primary human airway epithelial cells

Primary human airway epithelial cells provide an important model system for studying the biology of asthma and other common human diseases. It has been challenging to identify the role of specific genes in this system. Now two postdoctoral fellows from the Erle lab, KD Koh and Dan Cheng, working…

NHBLI Outstanding Investigator Award

The National Health Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health announced a seven-year, $6.7 million Outstandng Investigator Award to David Erle and his group. This award, which replaces two existing NIH R01 awards, will fund research on "Airway Epithelial Gene Regulation: New…

Human Biofluids: Large Differences in Small RNAs

RNAs produced in cells can be released from the cells and may mediate communication between cells. Small RNAs, including microRNAs (miRNAs) and fragments of larger RNAs, can be detected in human biofluids and may be useful biomarkers for disease.

NIAID Renews Support of UCSF Asthma and Allergic Diseases Cooperative Research Center

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will provide $7 million to support a third five-year cycle for UCSF's Asthma and Allergic Diseases Cooperative Research Center (AADCRC). The UCSF AADCRC was founded by Dean Sheppard, who is now turning over the Program Director role to…

Luke Bonser and team find mucus tethering implicated in fatal asthma

Fatal attacks of asthma are usually associated with obstruction of the airways with mucus (mucus plugs). During his postdoctoral fellowship in the Erle lab, Luke Bonser found that mucus plugs were heterogeneous, with some areas that contained one type of mucus glycoprotein (MUC5AC) and other areas…