Westmead Dermatology Recently, an open competitive grant application by members of the CTSR (Prof Pablo Fernandez-Penas as PI and Dr Ali Azimi as Sub-PI) was approved for funding by Pfizer through its Global Medical Grants Programme. The study is a 1.5 years long Phase IV clinical trial involving the investigation of the effect of nonsteroidal phosphodiesterase 4 inhibitor (PDE4) ointment Crisaborole on Atopic Dermatitis (AD).
AD is a common inflammatory skin disease characterized by the development of chronic or relapsing eczematous lesions. Studies have shown that patients with mild to moderate AD who are treated with the Crisaborole experience rapid and clinically relevant improvement in their condition. However, the mechanism of action of Crisaborole on AD and its potential effect on skin biology including adaptive immunity and skin barrier repair is still unclear.
This study will combine the non-invasive tape-stripping sample collection method with SWATH mass spectrometry-based proteomics pipeline to investigate the molecular effect of Crisaborole on AD pathophysiology and its potential mechanism of action on the lesion. This proposal will systematically compare the proteome profile of samples from AD patients before and after treatment with Crisaborole ointment. Changes in molecular pathways and biofunctions including but not limited to inflammation, adaptive immunity, skin barrier and skin repair at different stages of the disease will be investigated using bioinformatics tools.
The findings of this novel and non-invasive research will aid in our understanding of the mechanism of the action of Crisaborole on AD, and the molecular processes and pathways underlying the lesion.
Due to COVID-19 outbreak, recruitment to this study will commence towards the end of the year.
