Research profile: Dr Ian Pavord

Dr Ian Pavord is a consultant physician and honorary professor at the Institute for Lung Health at the University of Leicester and Glenfields Hospital. Dr Ian Pavord is a consultant physician and honorary professor at the Institute for Lung Health at the University of Leicester and Glenfields Hospital.

Asthma UK is supporting his current research into airway inflammation in asthma, cough and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Why is asthma so interesting as a research issue?

The closer you look, the more complex asthma gets. There are so many unknowns and we are only just getting the tools that are necessary to understand the underlying mechanisms of the many clinical expressions of airway conditions.

On a personal level, I am interested in airway inflammation because I have asthma and because I have a strong family history of the condition.

What do you enjoy most about your work?

I enjoy seeing the results of a clinical study for the first time. Another area that I enjoy is interacting with other research fellows and research assistants, particularly watching the latter group develop into independent researchers.

How does Asthma UK help your research?

Enormously. Asthma UK has funded a series of clinical studies here in Leicester, which have enabled us to make a number of important observations. We have been able to show that chronic cough can commonly be caused by inflammation of the airways in the absence of typical asthma symptoms, and that this type of bronchitis involves a particular inflammatory cell called an eosinophil. Although treatable, in some people this 'eosinophilic bronchitis ' can lead on to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease of the airways, referred to as COPD.

We have also demonstrated that the number of eosinophils present in sputum samples, which can give an indication of the level of inflammation in a person's airways, can predict how a person with asthma, cough or COPD will respond to steroid treatment. Using these observations we have been able to show that if asthma is managed in a way that specifically aims to reduce this inflammation the outcomes for people with difficult to control asthma are greatly improved.

What do you hope to achieve as a result of your research?

I hope that our work on the different mechanisms of the various abnormalities of airway function might allow the development of better treatments. However, these treatments may only help a sub-group of patients and I strongly feel that a more intensive approach to the assessment of people with asthma, and particularly those with severe symptoms, will lead to a better targeting of treatment for a greater number of people with asthma.


In this section