Grant to study pathogenesis of sarcoidosis aims to bring novel insights and develop effective treatments

Sarcoidosis is a common interstitial lung disease that often causes chronic disability and, in some extreme cases, premature death. Medical researchers and physicians haven’t identified what causes sarcoidosis, and effective and affordable treatments are currently not available.

Elliott Crouser, MD, professor of Internal Medicine at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, just received an R21 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the National Institutes of Health for a study titled, “Redox regulation of sarcoidosis granulomas and fibrosis.”

Dr. Crouser and his team conduct translational research in the field of pulmonary sarcoidosis to elicit disease mechanisms, establish novel biomarkers and investigate novel therapies. Their laboratory created the first tractable laboratory disease model. Dr. Crouser says this current research has the potential to develop fundamental knowledge and reduce the burden of this disease.

“Better understanding the disease mechanisms will lead to the development of more effective treatments and our ability to repurpose existing therapeutic agents,” Dr. Crouser says.

Sarcoidosis is a pulmonary and systemic granulomatous disease. Granulomatous inflammation signals a tissue reaction that appears following cell injury and can be caused by a variety of conditions, including infection, autoimmune, toxic, allergic, drug and neoplastic conditions. To better understand disease mechanisms, his team has recently established a novel ex vivo human granuloma model. 

“This model shares many structural and molecular features of the disease in human tissues” Dr. Crouser says. “Which is yielding novel insights into mechanisms regulating early granuloma formation.”