Daniel Beswick
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Cystic fibrosis (CF) is an inherited disease that makes mucus thick and sticky, damaging the lungs, gut and sinuses. Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS), long-lasting inflammation of the sinuses, is common in CF.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
cystic fibrosis
chronic rhinosinusitis
sinus disease
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2029
What they work on
- Characterize chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) and loss of smell in young children with cystic fibrosis, using validated, age-appropriate, non-invasive objective and subjective measures.
- Test whether CFTR modulator therapy (HEMT) improves sinus disease in young children, comparing treated and untreated age-matched groups by sinus MRI opacification and symptom burden over two years.
- Test whether HEMT improves smell in young children with CF, measuring olfactory bulb volume, quantitative smell function, olfactory cleft opacification and smell-specific quality of life.
- Compare outcomes between treated and untreated children over time using mixed-effect longitudinal models with propensity scoring, which corrects for differences between groups.
More about the research
It harms quality of life and worsens lung health. Loss of the sense of smell often comes with it and is linked to depression and poor nutrition. These problems have been little studied in young children with CF. New drugs called highly effective CFTR modulator therapy (HEMT) partly correct the faulty CFTR protein that causes CF. In adults, HEMT improves sinus disease but does not restore smell or fully clear the sinuses. This project asks whether starting the drugs early in childhood, before years of inflammation and infection, gives better results.
Why it matters
Results could guide when and how doctors check for and treat sinus disease and smell loss in young children with cystic fibrosis. They could also show whether early CFTR modulator treatment prevents these complications. The findings may help improve quality of life and overall health for children with CF.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Lucas Hoffman
University of Washington, WA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Test whether highly effective CFTR modulator therapy changes the gut microbiome and fecal metabolites, including bile acids, of people with cystic fibrosis, using stool samples and clinical data from two national observational studies.
Jonathan Overdevest
Columbia University, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Identify epidemiologic risk factors for initial and persistent olfactory dysfunction after COVID-19 in a multi-ethnic patient cohort, using both self-reported and test-based smell measures.
Robert Lee
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Physiology
Map how T2R bitter taste receptors in human nasal ciliated cells signal to eNOS, the enzyme that makes nitric oxide, using imaging and biochemistry in primary cells grown at an air-liquid interface.
The school
University of California-Los Angeles: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 803 research doctorates a year.
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