Researcher profile: Professor Jon Ayres

Professor Jon AyresJon Ayres is Professor of Environmental & Occupational Medicine and Head of Department at the University of Aberdeen. His main area of research is environmental factors in the development of asthma. 

Why is asthma so interesting as a research issue?

Asthma is common, which is in itself is an interesting enough reason to study the condition. Yet while there has been a huge push towards finding appropriate drug treatments for asthma, less attention has been paid to the removal or modification of possible underlying causes of the condition.

We know for instance that exposure to air pollution on a daily basis can make asthma worse and lead to increased hospital admissions, but there is still considerable doubt about whether long term exposure to air pollution increases the risk of someone actually developing asthma in the first place.

The rise in asthma, particularly in children in the 1970s and 80s, is also a mystery. While many people still believe that this was due to air pollution this truly is difficult to believe as in the UK air quality has improved over that period.  However, it is possible that other pollutants might be relevant.

For example, we now know that passive cigarette smoke is far more toxic than originally thought. Exposure to chemicals in the home and to allergens may also be important. 

What do you most enjoy about your work?

It is the finding out! There are so many unanswered questions and some of them are truly puzzling. So any one particular question if answered in a way that helps us understand asthma better is one more brick in the wall.  
 
My clinical work is also critically important – listening to people with asthma has always informed my research and indeed has generated many research projects.

How does Asthma UK help your research?

Asthma UK are funding a project in which we are looking at the possibility of allergens on the clothing of parents being brought home from their workplace and contributing to the development of asthma and respiratory symptoms in their children. We are doing this in conjunction with the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) Group in Bristol which is studying a group of 14,000 children born between 1991-2 and their parents.

These children are now 15 years old and some will be about to start work so we have included questions about their and their parents’ occupations to see if there is a relationship between this and their development and symptoms of asthma.  

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

I want to identify, as far as possible, the way that environmental factors influence the development and triggers of asthma and how changing those factors might help to reduce the effects and prevalence of asthma. 


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