Benaroya Research Institute

The HIPC study at Benaroya Research Institute, titled Acute Respiratory Infections in Asthma and Autoimmunity (ARIAA), is investigating the airway and systemic immune pathogenesis of acute respiratory viral infections (ARVI) in children and adults. The goal of this research program is to understand the molecular and cellular immune signatures of the vulnerable host response to acute respiratory viral infections to identify novel therapies and individuals at risk for clinical complications. The program includes a detailed systems immunology assessment of acute and long-term airway and adaptive systemic immune responses to naturally occurring infection. The two projects have parallel designs investigating children and adults and benefit from shared multi-omics approaches generating bulk and single cell data from airway and blood samples. This will allow for direct comparisons to be made between the adult and pediatric cohorts to identify common and divergent responses to ARVI. The pediatric studies will include healthy participants as well as children with asthma, atopy and obesity. The adult studies will include healthy individuals and participants with early and late-stage rheumatoid arthritis. Our research program will produce novel mechanistic insights into the diversity and commonality of human immune responses to acute respiratory viruses and use cutting-edge methods to identify potential therapies.