Researchers at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) have launched a multidisciplinary programme to investigate how wildfire smoke affects human health.
The WE-CAIR initiative, short for Wildfire Exposure: Cardiovascular and Airway Inflammation Research, brings together 22 investigators from across UC Davis and collaborators at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
The programme is supported by a five-year $14.05m grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.
Researchers will examine the biological and social factors that contribute to health decline after wildfire smoke exposure, aiming to identify biomarkers of risk and potential pathways for prevention and treatment.
The work comes as exposure to extreme wildfire smoke has risen sharply. Studies estimate that the number of people experiencing at least one day of extreme wildfire smoke exposure each year has increased 27-fold over the past decade.
While exposure is known to worsen cardiovascular and pulmonary disease in the short term, longer-term wildfire smoke health effects remain poorly understood.
Investigating how wildfire smoke affects health
WE-CAIR is built around four interconnected research projects examining different mechanisms through which wildfire smoke may contribute to health problems.
The first will investigate group 2 innate lymphoid cells, known as ILC2s. Previous work by the Haczku Lab found that these immune cells can produce unusually high levels of the inflammatory cytokines IL-13 and IL-17 when activated by wildfire smoke.
The second project will examine the aryl hydrocarbon receptor, or AhR, an environmental sensor that may play a role in cardiovascular inflammation caused by wildfire smoke.
Researchers will also investigate TET1, an epigenetic regulator that may help protect the airways and cardiovascular system from inflammation. The fourth project will examine how psychosocial stress and social vulnerability affect the health consequences of wildfire smoke exposure.
Combining human and controlled exposure research
The programme will bring together human clinical studies with controlled wildfire smoke exposure models. Researchers will also use molecular and epigenetic approaches, supported by bioinformatics and other specialist research cores.
Data generated across the projects will be integrated at a systems level, allowing the researchers to examine connections between exposure, biological responses and health outcomes.
This approach is intended to trace wildfire smoke health effects across multiple stages, from exposure and immune responses through to changes in the epigenome and the effects observed in patients.
A multidisciplinary research effort
The programme’s multidisciplinary structure is designed to address the different factors involved in wildfire smoke exposure and its health effects, including biological mechanisms, individual susceptibility, psychosocial stress and social vulnerability.
Researchers hope the findings will clarify why some people are more susceptible to wildfire smoke and how prolonged exposure contributes to declining health.
The work could also help identify biological markers of risk and pathways that could inform future approaches to preventing, mitigating and treating wildfire smoke health effects.
