School Notes: School of Engineering & Applied Science
March/April 2014

Researching asthma, one microbe at a time

Children are exposed to thousands of microbes every day of their lives, which is one reason researchers have a difficult time determining which microbes cause some children to develop asthma—a disease that growing evidence suggests is associated with microbial exposure. However, new research from associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering Jordan Peccia and environmental engineering doctoral student Karen Dannemiller suggests that no one microbe is associated with asthma development. Rather, asthma is associated with early-life exposure to low fungal diversity. Therefore, exposure to a large diversity of microbes, or at least to the “right” microbes (including one fungal species identified by the researchers), may inhibit development of the disease. Peccia and Dannemiller’s study is also significant for being the first to examine the relationship between asthma development and fungal diversity in house dust using DNA barcoding, a next-generation method of DNA sequencing that provides accurate, quantitative species identification of a microbial community using short genetic markers. “We had a unique opportunity to advance scientific understanding by combining cutting-edge measurement techniques from engineering with skilled epidemiological methods,” Dannemiller says.

Next week’s homework: save a life

Students in last fall’s Medical Device Design and Innovation course had a task easier described than done: design a novel medical device to solve a real-world problem identified by doctors at the Yale School of Medicine. Yet, fusing medical research experience with engineering and design skills, the four teams developed a portable device to record epileptic seizures, an improved drug delivery system for children with hemophilia, a non-invasive surgical tool to aid in operations in the back of the tongue and skull, and a perfusion and transportation system for surgeons performing small bowel transplants. “It’s amazing this course didn’t already exist,” says Joe Zinter ’11PhD, assistant director of Yale’s Center for Engineering Innovation and Design, who developed and cotaught the class with Dr. Richard Fan, an associate research scientist at the School of Medicine. “With continued work, we hope to move some of these projects from the bench to the bedside, where they can improve patients’ lives.”