Asthma Treatment Research

Asthma Causes & Triggers

Woolcock Asthma Treatment Research

Care Planning & Treatment Of Asthma

Pharmacists provide easy access for the community and these healthcare professionals have adopted our training and intervention programs. This ‘pharmacist care’ has improved control over asthma and helped patients to manage their inhalers and disease. We also work with the disabled and elderly populations to understand specific needs of people with asthma who have cognitive or device handling issues.

We are developing diagnostic tools that allow us to evaluate the severity of asthma and use 3-dimensional imaging techniques to understand how the airways in asthmatics close and become obstructed. We are studying how the lungs in asthmatics change over time.

At a cellular level, we are investigating how extracellular matrix proteins are involved and are developing new drug delivery systems that target these changes.

Woolcock Institute – What We Know About Asthma

Our teams have been collecting cells from volunteers, over many years, and have been studying them to understand the molecular differences between people with and without asthma. With an understanding of the fundamental mechanisms we can create new molecules and drug delivery technologies which we can trial in the clinic.

It is also known that exposure to viruses, such as the common cold, can make asthma worse. We investigate why infections cause airways to become stiffer and less responsive to asthma drugs. We need to understand how this happens, and then we can counteract their effects on the lungs.

At a cellular level, our research has discovered one of the mechanisms by which asthma medications become less effective during viral infections and we have identified a pre-existing drug which may be beneficial.

Woolcock & Asthma Research Collaboration

The Australian Centre for Airways disease Monitoring (ACAM), formerly known as the Australian Centre for Asthma Monitoring, is a collaborating unit of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare based at the Woolcock. The Centre gathers data from across Australia, through all state health departments, to track asthma at a national level. ACAM has been collecting prevalence, management and treatment data for over 10 years. These data are used to inform health policy decisions and develop new approaches to managing and treating asthma.

The Woolcock produced a report on trends in asthma control in the 21 years after the first publication of the Australian asthma management plan. Read Asthma Control in Australia 1990-2011

Get your asthma treated by the best at the Woolcock Clinic, a world-leading medical centre specialising in the diagnosis and treatment of all sleep and breathing disorders. Our dedicated clinicians are at the forefront of international sleep and respiratory research, ensuring our patients get access to the very latest approaches in care.

Our inter-disciplinary approach allows patients to be treated under one roof at our state-of-the-art facility in Macquarie Park, Sydney.

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For bookings with a Respiratory and Sleep Physician, please click here. For all other appointments, or if the doctor you wish to see is not listed online, please call us on 02 9805 3000. or complete the form below. 

Please arrange for a referral from your doctor. To download a referral form, click here.    

Please note that the Woolcock Clinic is a fee-charging clinic.