Ariangela Kozik

Let’s take a look at asthma through the works of Dr. Kozik, an American Biotechnologist and research scientist. She earned her B.Sc. degree in Biotechnology from Calvin University, Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2013 and her Ph.D. from the University of Purdue, Indiana in 2018. She’s been a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan since then. Her publications include papers in the journals: Microbial Genomics, eLife, Experimental Molecular Pathology, and mSphere.

She is also an activist who studies asthma in Black American people, who experience a higher incidence rate of asthma than the general population and who often suffer from more acute signs and symptoms.

Asthma itself was first identified as an illness characterized only by shortness of breath, but then in the 20th century, it was recharacterized as an inflammatory response. With the contribution of various factors, asthma has been on the rise in recent generations, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported a rate of 7.8% among the American population in 2021.  The data has been subdivided into categories that help recognize the vulnerability of certain groups to the illness.  The categories are based on age, gender, family history, and race.  It was made clear that Black and Caribbean American children are at higher risk of asthma than other ethnicities because of various socioeconomic factors, which include experiencing low income, low housing quality, stress, insufficient family resources to manage chronic conditions and exposure to urban pollution,

There are two categories of asthma, that involve either Type I or Type II inflammation.  Asthma caused by Type 1 hypersensitivity immune responses to environmental allergens (e.g. pollen) more often develops during childhood.  On the other hand, asthma can also be triggered by Type 2 hypersensitivity immune responses, which have non-allergen stimuli.  This type of asthma, typically has a later onset, more often in adulthood.  In this case, asthmatic attacks are triggered by respiratory mucosal irritation caused by dry, cold air, exercise, or by infections.

There are several theories as to how Type I hypersensitivity asthma develops.  It is known that commensal microbiota of the gut and respiratory tracts are established in infancy. One study suggests that the transfer of microbiota of the lung and gut starts in the uterus during the embryogenic state and continues to grow as children come in closer contact with their environment.  Breastfeeding also plays an essential role in infants’ gut microbiota development as it introduces antibodies to that area during the first stages of infancy.  There are also differences in the microbiota of babies depending on whether they were born vaginally or through Caesarian section.  There are various types of bacteria (that can included pathogens) that are found in the upper airway of infants that include Moraxella spp., Catarrhalis spp., and Streptococcus Pneumonia.  Exposure to various microbiota levels are also different depending on living conditions (e.g. rural vs. urban).  It is speculated that microbiota help in the development of the immune response.  It is thought  a certain level of microbe exposure is required to ensure the immune response develops in a manner that is balanced properly – with a robust response against harmful pathogens and ideally no response against non-harmful allergens.  Type I hypersensitive asthma and allergies develop when the immune system is overly-responsive (or hypersensitive) to non-harmful environmental agents (e.g. pollen).   In the case of asthma and/or allergies, the breathing in of allergens inappropriately stimulates the immune system which causes inflammation to occur within the respiratory structures leading to watering eyes and nose, sneezing, coughing, swelling of bronchioles, excess mucus production, and difficulty breathing.  Frequent asthmatic attacks can lead to bronchiole remodeling and fibrosis.

Kozik’s team has found that the composition of microbiota is different between 3 groups of people:  those with severe asthma attacks, those with mild asthma attacks, and those with no attacks.  These results align with the initial findings that respiratory and digestive microbiota play an essential role in the training of the immune system, decreasing the prevalence of asthma among the members that faced a higher variety of commensal microbes within one’s microbiota (flora) during the initial stages of their lives.

References

– Ariangela, D.K. (2021, 4, 1). On the Edge of What We Don’t Know. Spark. Calvin Education. https://calvin.edu/publication/spark/2021/04/01/on-the-edge-of-what-we-don-t-know

– Huang, Y. J., Porsche, C., Kozik, A. J., & Lynch, S. V. (2022). Microbiome-immune interactions in allergy and asthma. The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in Practice (Cambridge, MA). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaip.2022.05.038

– Kozik, A. (n.d.). Ariangela J. Kozik, Phd. Ariangela J. Kozik, PhD. Retrieved August 21, 2022, from https://kozimicrobe.com

– Kozik, A. J., & Huang, Y. J. (2019). The microbiome in asthma. Annals of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology, 122(3), 270-275. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anai.2018.12.005

– Kozik, A. J., & Huang, Y. J. (2019;2018;). The microbiome in asthma: Role in pathogenesis, phenotype, and response to treatment. Annals of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology, 122(3), 270-275. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anai.2018.12.005

*This Scientist Spotlight has just been published here (Oct. 2023):  https://scientistspotlights.org/scientist/ariangela-kozik/