Overview
| Subspecialty |
Clinical and Laboratory Immunology-Allergy and Immunology
|
| Clinical Interests |
Allergic Rhinitis |
| |
Allergy |
| |
Asthma |
| Languages |
English |
| |
Spanish |
| Gender |
Female |
| E-mail |
paula.busse@mssm.edu |
| Education and Training |
MD, University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry |
| |
Residency, Internal Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital |
| |
Fellowship, Clinical Immunology, Mount Sinai Hospital |
Dr. Busse is funded by a K08 grant from the National Institutes of Health and has received several foundation grants. She has been a small group discussion leader for the first-year medical student basic immunology course for the past four years and an attending on the general medical floors for the past three years. Dr. Busse is active in the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, giving seminars at the annual meetings for the past few years and elected to several of its committees.
Research
Dr. Busse is researching the regulation of mucus-producing genes in asthmatic airways. She is also studying the development and airway inflammation of asthma in the elderly. In addition, she is the principal investigator for a clinical trial for the treatment of a rare disease, hereditary angioedema.
Asthma is an inflammatory airways disease which is often characterized by reversible obstruction. In certain patients, however, this inflammation may lead to irreversible obstruction, secondary to structural changes. These airway changes include mucus cell hyperplasia/hypertrophy, increased thickness of the airway basement membrane by deposition of collagen and other extracellular proteins, increased vascularity, altered neuronal responses and hypertrophy of the airway smooth muscle. Current evidence suggests that these changes may not be prevented with anti-inflammatory treatment such as corticosteroids, but this is controversial. TNF-alpha is an important cytokine in asthma which has both proinflammatory and profibrotic properties and its role in promoting structural changes in the airway has been noted in animal models of asthma and in humans. Importantly, approaches to block the effects of TNF-alpha have proven to be quite effective in a number of other chronic inflammatory diseases. Given this background, it is Dr. Busse’s hypothesis that TNF-alpha is an important cytokine in asthma in the regulation of mucus-cell hyperplasia. Furthermore, modulation of TNF-alpha, using an anti- TNF-alpha antibody may be an appropriate adjunctive therapy in asthma, preventing or attenuating mucus-cell hyperplasia/hypertrophy (metaplasia in the murine system) and avoiding the consequences of long-term corticosteroid use. The overall goal of her work in this area is to evaluate the effects of TNF-alpha on an important aspect of airway pathology in asthma, mucus-cell hyperplasia/hypertrophy.
