Gern Research Group

The Gern Research Group is conducting several NIH-funded translational research studies to define the role of viral infections and other environmental factors in asthma initiation and disease activity and identify interactions between host, viral, and environmental factors (e.g., bacteria) that determine the severity of respiratory illnesses.

First, Dr. Gern is a Co-Principal Investigator along with Dr. Christine Seroogy for the University of Wisconsin Asthma and Allergic Diseases Clinical Research Center (AADCRC, funded by the NIH/NIAID). This is a collaborative program involving investigators in the Allergy/Immunology and Rheumatology Divisions (James Gern, Christine Seroogy, Yury Bochkov, Eishika Dissanayake) and Dr. Irene Ong (Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Biostatistics and Medical Informatics) at the University of Wisconsin. Three interrelated projects determine how environmental exposures in farm and non-farm environments promote immune development and reduce the risk of viral respiratory illnesses, allergic diseases, and asthma in early childhood. These involve multiomics evaluation of airway and gut microbes, their metabolites, and effects on airway epithelial cells.

In addition, Dr. Gern is the Co-PI with Dr. Daniel Jackson (Department of Pediatrics) of the Childhood Asthma in Urban Settings (CAUSE) Administrative Center (funded by NIAID) and leads the Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma (URECA) birth cohort study within CAUSE. This study aims to identify lifestyle and environmental factors (including viral infections) unique to the urban environment that influence early immune development to increase the risks for allergic diseases and asthma.

Dr. Gern leads a collaborative data-sharing project called the Childhood Allergy and Asthma Data Repository (CADRE, funded by NIAID and the Office of the NIH Director). This project pools, harmonizes, and shares data from 13 US birth cohort studies. CADRE’s goal is to address questions about early life risk factors for asthma that are difficult to study within single cohorts due to limitations on sample size and single-center populations. Dr. Gern also leads one of 50 centers of the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program (funded by the NIH/NICHD). The ECHO study pools data from 50 US cohorts to address questions about risk factors for asthma, obesity, neurocognitive development, and perinatal outcomes.

Finally, the laboratory is participating in collaborative research projects to define mechanisms for viral respiratory infections to cause long-lived abnormalities of airway structure and function and to identify rhinovirus-induced inflammatory mechanisms involving airway epithelial cells.

Associated Training Programs

Allergy and Immunology Fellowship

Cellular and Molecular Pathology (CMP) Graduate Program

Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP)

Microbes in Health and Disease Training Grant

Virology Training Grant