NPF-Funded Research

Project Summary:

Psoriasis and other immune-mediated diseases occur when the immune system becomes too active, while serious infections happen when it is not active enough. Some genetic factors that increase the risk of conditions like psoriasis can also protect against infection. Using detailed data on the genetics of infection, this project will uncover these trade-offs and identify shared immune pathways. By comparing infection genetics with immune-disease genetics, we can also pinpoint which gene changes are truly disease-causing—something that has not been possible for most risk regions until now.

How will your project help improve the lives of the 125 million affected by psoriatic disease?

Although many genetic regions associated with psoriasis have been identified, for most we still do not know which genetic changes actually cause disease or how they affect the immune system. Our project takes a new approach to this problem by using information about genetic susceptibility to infection to help identify the variants and immune pathways that contribute to psoriasis. Understanding the balance between protection from infection and excessive immune activity could reveal important mechanisms underlying psoriatic disease. In the longer term, this knowledge could help identify new therapeutic targets and support the development of treatments that control harmful inflammation while preserving the immune system’s ability to fight infection.

Why is psoriatic disease research important to you, personally? What role will this award play in your research efforts or career development?

My research has long focused on understanding the genetics of immune-mediated disease, particularly systemic lupus erythematosus. Through this work, I became increasingly interested in the balance between genetic susceptibility to immune-mediated disease and protection from infection. Psoriasis provides an important opportunity to investigate this relationship and to understand how the same immune pathways can contribute both to protection from infection and to inflammatory disease  This award is particularly important to me because it allows me to develop this idea into a new area of research within my group. It will support a dedicated researcher and enable us to generate the data and preliminary findings needed to establish a broader programme investigating the genetic links between infection and immune-mediated disease. I hope this will lead to larger studies and, ultimately, new insights that are relevant to people living with psoriasis.

Researcher Profile:

Dr. Barua is a recipient of the 2024 American Heart Association Second Century Early Faculty Independence Award, investigating the potential of wearables and AI in identifying early digital biomarkers of pregnancy complications. The current NPF-funded project represents a natural extension of this expertise into psoriatic disease, leveraging established methodological strengths in wearable technology and AI to address critical unmet needs in PsA treatment optimization.