Medical school in Wisconsin gets contract to study asthma in children

Friday, October 25th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

MADISON, Wis. (AP) _ The University of Wisconsin Medical School has been awarded a six-year, $55.8 million contract to study methods of reducing asthma among inner-city children.

Asthma is ``a major health burden for society,'' said William Busse, who heads the allergy and immunology programs at the school and will serve as the principal investigator.

``And for people living in inner cities, it's a tremendous burden because of the severity of the disease and what is for many of them tremendous difficulty getting medical care.''

Researchers will examine the effectiveness of current treatments and new immune-based treatments, as well as look at asthma's underlying mechanisms. The contract was announced Thursday.

Busse said one goal is to ``develop treatments which have an immune basis to them,'' because of the role allergies so frequently play in asthma cases.

Some of the research will be conducted at Madison, but the school will also serve as the hub for clinical trials in eight other sites around the country.

Other locations include Boston University; Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago; Howard University in Washington, D.C.; Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore; Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York; National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver; the University of Arizona in Tucson and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Busse said the national study will eventually include nearly 1,000 children.