Recently, Geisinger Health System, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the North-western Medicine® Sinus and Allergy Centre, and the University of Chicago formed the Chronic Rhinosinusitis Integrative Studies Program (CRISP) in the United States of America. The collective program would conduct research studies to understand the disease and develop effective treatment methods, benefiting the patients. CRISP received the program project grant (P01) to study the common disease in America, but current knowledge of which is still rudimentary. The program would estimate remission, prevalence, and incidence of chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) based on studies involving samples from the general population representing the complete CRS spectrum.
Goals of Chronic Rhinosinusitis Integrative Studies Program
- To understand genetic polymorphism associated with severity and susceptibility of CRS.
- To find costs and characteristics of the disease.
- To identify the factors exacerbating stubborn CRS
- How do immunological factors affect CRS?
- To study the environmental risks of the disorder.
Composition of Chronic Rhinosinusitis Integrative Studies Program
CRISP consists of five groups of collaborative studies and research work:
- Core A focuses on administration.
- Core B, Clinical, Laboratory, and Data Management Core
- CRS Epidemiology Project: The Geisinger Health Systems (G.H.S.) would use new approaches to appraise the epidemiology of the disease in more than 300,000 primary care patients in Pennsylvania.
- CRS Immunology and Exacerbation Mechanism Project would collaborate with the epidemiology project at North-western University (1) to study the pathogens exacerbating the disease and (2) define the scope of autoimmunity in the severity of the disease. The immunology project would also assess the role of autoimmunity and B lineage cells in the CRS aetiology.
- CRS Genetics Project: The University of Chicago would conduct research studies (1) to find genes associated with the disease and (2) understand the relationship between genetics and severity and various states of the disorder. The university would use the epidemiology project controls and samples collected from 2,000 patients to understand genetics.
- The epidemiology and immunology projects would develop a new “systems genetics discovery platform” that would be used for identifying gene candidates.
Benefits of CRISP
The resultant improved fundamental knowledge about CRS sub-phenotypes would help researchers identify cellular and molecular mechanisms and genetic susceptibilities causing and exacerbating the symptoms of the disease. The understanding would facilitate the development of therapies that are more effective than the existing ones.
