Immune cell types in severe asthma

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airway associated with the recruitment and activation of a large number of diverse immune cells including eosinophils, macrophages, mast cells, neutrophils and T cells. These play divergent roles in the various sub-types of asthma that exist and make excellent potential therapeutic targets for specific patients. The advent of single cell sequencing and associated bioinformatics tools has enabled the interrogation of immune cell subtypes in asthma samples that were previously difficult to either access or isolate sufficient immune cells from such as bronchial biopsies, BAL and sputum. The presentation will highlight how distinct we can use information from single cell analysis to identify groups of severe asthmatics associated with key cell-types that are driven by specific driver mechanisms. This has implications for personalised medicine