Max A. Seibold Email Address

Director of Regenerative Medicine and Genome Editing Program at NJH

CU Denver offers more than 130 programs in 13 schools and colleges at the undergraduate, graduate, doctoral and first professional (health) levels.

The Seibold lab is focused on developing and applying precision medicine approaches to childhood asthma and other lung diseases. Our current area of research centers on understanding the heterogeneity in airway molecular dysfunction that exists across clinically defined asthma. In particular we are examining the role of genetic, environmental, and immune factors in determination of airway epithelial gene expression endotypes of childhood asthma. To define molecular airway endotypes we are performing whole transcriptome sequencing analysis of in vivo airway brushings from diverse asthma cohorts. We are examining the quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) which drive airway gene expression and which of these eQTLs determine asthma risk. In addition, we are using these brushings to extract and expand primary airway epithelial cells to establish population-based banks of live airway epithelial cells. We are measuring the transcriptional response to environmental asthma risk factors in these genetically defined culture cohorts to interrogate gene x environment interactions relevant to asthma at the level of the epithelial cell. Finally, we are developing methods to edit the genome of primary airway epithelial cells to better understand the role of risk genes and genetic variants in the development of asthma and lung diseases.