40% of all asthma patients in the US are obese. Obese asthmatics have more severe disease
than lean asthmatics and do not respond as well to conventional anti-inflammatory therapies.
This proposal will utilize 3D functional imaging with 129XeMRI and single cell RNA sequencing
to study mechanisms driving regional airway remodeling and fibrosis in obese asthma subjects
and in preclinical models of obese asthma.