Targeting Epigenetics in Inflammatory Lung Diseases (PDF)

and New Zealand's NSW branch. Brian's team was the first to demonstrate that primary human lung cells from people with asthma have an increased inflammatory response to rhinovirus infection (Resp Res 2006). This increased response is virus-specific and related to differential transcription factor recruitment to inflammatory gene promoters. Since rhinovirus-induced Inflammation correlates with the occurrence and severity of asthma exacerbations, this finding helps explain why exacerbations occur.



Dr. Kamal Dua, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of Pharmacy, Graduate School of Health, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), has a research experience of over 12 years working in drug delivery targeting inflammatory diseases. Dr Dua is also a Node Leader of Drug Delivery Research in the Centre for Inflammation at Centenary Institute/UTS, where the targets identified from the research projects are pursued to develop novel formulations as the first step towards translation into clinics. In addition, Dr. Dua researches two complementary areas; drug delivery and immunology, specifically addressing how these disciplines can advance one another, helping the community live longer and healthier. His extensive publication record evidences this in reputed journals. Dr. Dua's research interests focus on harnessing the pharmaceutical potential of modulating critical regulators such as Interleukins and microRNAs and developing new and effective drug delivery formulations for the management of Inflammation in chronic airway diseases and cancer.



Dr. Md Khadem Ali received a B.Sc. in Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering in 2010 from Khulna University, Bangladesh, an M.Sc. in Systems Biotechnology in 2013 from Chung-Ang University, South Korea, and a PhD in Immunology and Microbiology in 2018 from the University of Newcastle, Australia. During his PhD with Associate Professor Jay Horvat, he investigated the role of iron in lung disease. In Nov 2018, he joined Spiekerkoetter laboratory at Stanford to identify clinically significant novel bone morphogenic protein receptor 2 (BMPR2) signaling modifier genes that could be targeted with repurposed drugs to increase BMPR2 expression and signaling, one of the key pathways and potential master switch in PAH. In addition to lessons learned from a related genetic disease (PAH), he worked on another disease PAVM/HHT associated with dysfunctional TGF-ss/BMPR2 signaling. Dr. Ali's key expertise includes airway/tissue remodelling, pulmonary vascular remodelling, iron metabolism, non-coding RNA biology, and in vitro, in vivo, and ex vivo lung disease modelling.



Dr. Piyush Dave did his master's degree and Ph.D. from the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Mohali, Punjab, a premier pharmaceutical institute of national importance in India and currently working as an Assistant professor in the School of Pharmacy, Suresh Gyan Vihar University, Jaipur, India. His research work of more than eight years primarily oriented in the investigation of the role of epigenetic modification in insulin-dependent (Type-I) and Insulin-non-dependant (Type-II) diabetes mellitus and in the neglected infectious diseases (Malaria and Leishmaniasis). Dr. Piyush dave has been investigated the role of sodium butyrate and valproic acid (Non-specific HDAC inhibitors) in the progression of diabetes mellitus (Type-I and Type-II) associated complications and the immunomodulatory protection against the infectious agents for the discovery and development of novel pharmaceuticals for the betterment of the life of humankind.