Asthma affects 8 percent of the U.S. population. Severe asthma—the symptoms of which are difficult to manage despite high doses of medicines, like corticosteroids—accounts for most healthcare costs due to its complexity to treat. New therapies are needed to eliminate symptoms of this life-threatening disease.
Ben Gaston, the Billie Lou Wood Professor of Pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine, has developed a targeted treatment solution for asthma patients and is seeking partnerships to take his research to market.
“There is no one-size-fits-all approach for treating asthma,” said Gaston. “Each patient’s symptoms are different; therefore, we aim to develop personalized treatments in order to find the right drug for the right person.”
Gaston and his team studied the role of androgen signaling in asthma patients. Androgens are a group of sex hormones that play an active role in body development. Gaston discovered that patients with low androgen levels typically have worse asthmatic outcomes due to low forced expiratory volume at one second, FEV1, which is how much air is exhaled in one second. If asthma patients have low FEV1, their airflow is obstructed.
To combat this, Gaston has developed a proprietary slow-release dose of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), a hormone that can increase androgen levels and has been found to have anti-inflammatory effects, to help treat severe asthmatic patients. Gaston’s drug formulation significantly improves lung function by reducing airway inflammation and other symptoms. It also has minimal side effects for patients which is a game changer as current treatment options typically leave asthma patients symptomatic.
Gaston’s lab specializes in developing therapies for respiratory diseases such as asthma and other obstructive lung diseases. His research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health for 25 years. He is currently vice chair for translational research at the Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health, as well as at the Department of Pediatrics and the Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research at the IU School of Medicine, and he has a pediatric pulmonology practice at Riley.
Earlier this month, he was one of two IU School of Medicine faculty members to be inducted into the prestigous Association of American Physicians, which recognizes excellence in the pursuit of medical knowledge and the advancement of basic and clinical science through experimentation, discovery and application to clinical medicine.
Gaston has disclosed 13 inventions, published numerous patents and created five startups, some with the help of the IU Innovation and Commercialization Office.
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