Research

Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is a devastating condition that is sorely lacking in treatment options. We are honored to be part of the Southern California ILD Consortium, a group consisting of directors of ILD programs around the area, where we discuss potential collaborations and research ideas.

We are currently engaged in the following research:

• Use of machine learning algorithm to identify interstitial lung disease patients in collaboration with other UC campuses.
• Phase II clinical trial of efficacy and safety of CS312 in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
• Phase III clinical trial of the efficacy and safety of inhaled treprostinil in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Our interdisciplinary sleep center is located in Irvine, CA, a hub of medical technology development. The UCI Comprehensive Sleep Center faculty are engaged in a broad range of research, including:

• Investigating the cardiovascular consequences of sleep apnea, including its impact on heart failure and hypertension.
• The relationship between sleep apnea, sleep time, exercise and cognitive function.
• Sleep testing technology: the center is testing and actively contributing to the development of convenient and accurate sleep testing methodology as well as monitoring the effectiveness of treatment.

Our team is part of a collaborative research consortium created by the Society of Critical Care Medicine. During the height of the pandemic, we were heavily involved in research and industry-sponsored trials regarding the care of patients with severe COVID-19 cases. From that work came publications on a range of topics pertaining to critical care in the pandemic.

• We explored the safety and efficacy of MAS825 (anti-IL-1ꞵ/IL-18) in COVID-19 patients with pneumonia and impaired respiratory function. 
• We were also part of several studies testing the use of an IV vasoactive intestinal peptide (Aviptadil) in patients with critical COVID-19 respiratory failure. 
• Our team has received industry sponsorship to explore the safety, tolerability and efficacy of medications to treat patients with respiratory distress or pneumonia due to COVID-19 infection. 

Our critical care faculty are also conducting several studies that investigate novel treatments for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and pneumonia due to COVID-19 and other respiratory infections. 

Research studies led by critical care faculty Richard Lee and Timmy Cheng include the following:

• Investigation of an RNA-engineered allogeneic mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) product in the treatment of ARDS.
• Investigation of a transient receptor potential channel C6 (TRPC6) in preventing or halting the progression of ARDS and ARDS-related complications of COVID-19.
• An adaptive platform trial to reduce mortality and ventilator requirements for critically Ill patients in which agents will be identified with a signal suggesting a meaningful impact on reducing mortality and the need for, as well as duration of, mechanical ventilation.
• Evaluation of the efficacy and safety of an investigational oral, noncompetitive allosteric inhibitor of the IL-8 receptors CXCR1 and CXCR2 that may reduce lung injury and systemic inflammation in adults hospitalized with moderate to severe ARDS.

Our team will soon be publishing the results of a study in collaboration with Apple and Anthem regarding the use of basic technology like Apple Watches and iPhones to manage asthma symptoms and improve clinical outcomes. 

We are also working with innovative companies to leverage smartphones/wearable sensors and advances in artificial intelligence (AI) to enable quantitative monitoring of cough and home-based assessment of lung function as a surrogate for spirometry.

As a part of the University of California Alliance for Pulmonary Embolism (UCAPE), our faculty are dedicated to improving care and outcomes of patients with pulmonary embolism. Current studies include:

• Research on improving the management of pulmonary embolism patients in the outpatient setting.
• Exploring outcomes for pulmonary embolism patients in an attempt to understand and improve the standard of care when deciding on interventional treatment versus medication.
• UC-system-wide protocol called SEARCH, a novel hierarchical algorithm for discerning long-term outcomes after pulmonary embolism.
• PETRACT: an NIH-funded multicenter research project randomizing catheter-directed therapy for pulmonary embolism (PE) compared to anticoagulation alone.

In addition, we are currently planning an NIH R01 grant aiming to study the accuracy of a noninvasive, low-dose, comprehensive CT method that can simultaneously provide quantitative dynamic CT perfusion and CT angiography with a single contrast injection for assessing the severity of acute PE.

Our team participates in leading innovative studies in diagnosis of lung cancer, such as CellVizio technology using confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) for detection of malignant and other benign diseases with a live image at a cellular level during the procedure. We are working closely with our multidisciplinary lung cancer research group to bring cutting-edge technologies such as local bronchoscopic ablation of lung cancer and to study their synergy with other cancer therapies, including immunotherapy.

The development of more effective diagnostic and prognostic tools is critical to advance the care of patients with pulmonary hypertension. Our team is involved in a number of clinical research efforts and clinical trials so that UCI Medical Center patients have access to the most cutting-edge therapies. Recent and ongoing studies include:

• Phase II and Phase III trials of the activin signaling inhibitor therapy drug sotatercept for treatment of patients with severe (World Health Organization functional classes 3 and 4) pulmonary arterial hypertension and those with left heart disease.
• Long-term follow-up studies, on patients who have already received sotatercept during a trial, to evaluate its long-term safety and tolerability.
• Randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind multicenter clinical trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of the tyrosine kinase inhibitor as an add-on therapy in the treatment of severe pulmonary arterial hypertension. 
• Retrospective review that tracks the psychological wellbeing and coping mechanisms of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Tuberculosis remains the worldwide leading cause of death from an infectious disease. Our faculty are engaged in studies to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis in high-burden countries. Current studies include:

• NIH U01-funded multi-country study to identify, select and evaluate the most promising novel tests for diagnosing tuberculosis including drug resistance (Uganda, South Africa, India, Philippines, Vietnam and Georgia).
• USAID-funded study to conduct multi-country studies of the accuracy of novel point-of-care tuberculosis diagnostics to support World Health Organization guideline development in adults and children (Philippines, Nigeria, Zambia and Mozambique).
• Development of methods for tongue swab-based molecular testing for tuberculosis.
• Evaluation of AI-based analysis of cough and lung sound recordings as a screening tool for tuberculosis.
• Randomized trial of delivery strategies for short-course preventive therapy in the context of routine HIV/AIDS care.
• NIH R01-funded study using ultra-sensitive ELISA, proteomics and metabolomics to identify promising pathogen- and host-derived biomarker signatures for diagnosing childhood tuberculosis.
• NIH R01-funded study using phage immunoprecipitation sequencing, proteomics and metabolomics to identify biomarker signatures for predicting progression from tuberculosis infection to disease in children.