National Jewish Joins Effort to Fight Asthma in Inner-City Children

National Jewish Medical and Research Center has been named one of eight academic medical centers that will conduct clinical trials in a six-year, $70 million project to fight asthma in inner-city children. The Inner-City Asthma Consortium's (ICAC) primary goal will be to evaluate the effectiveness of promising immune-based asthma treatments. The researchers also expect to evaluate genetic predispositions to asthma and the biological mechanisms underlying the development of the disease. The research will focus on inner-city children, a group that suffers disproportionately from asthma.

Stanley Szefler, MD, Head of Pediatric Clinical Pharmacology at National Jewish, is the principal investigator for the National Jewish effort and associate principal investigator for the entire consortium. He will be in charge of developing and designing the clinical trials conducted by consortium members.

Andy Liu, MD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at National Jewish, will be the co-principal investigator for National Jewish. He will oversee the implementation of the trials locally.

Erwin Gelfand, MD, Chair of Pediatrics at National Jewish, will chair the consortium's scientific advisory committee. Hal Nelson, MD, Professor of Medicine at National Jewish, will serve as a consultant on immunotherapy.

The National Jewish team expects to work with Denver Health & Hospital Authority to identify and recruit inner-city children for the clinical trials. Denver Health's efforts will be led by John Ogle, MD, Director of Pediatrics at Denver Health and Professor and Vice Chairman, Department of Pediatrics at University of Colorado School of Medicine; and Mark Anderson, MD, pediatrician at Denver Health and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at University of Colorado School of Medicine.