David B. Corry, M.D.

Professor
Department of Medicine - Immunology, Allergy, and Rheumatology

Dr. Corry received the award for his contributions to elucidating the fundamental basis of allergic diseases. Perhaps more than any other research group, his lab is responsible for our modern understanding of allergic disease pathogenesis, providing much needed hope for improving therapies which today are only supportive.

In his first breakthrough, he demonstrated that proteases are responsible for triggering allergic inflammation in an asthma model in mice. The concept that proteolytic enzymes drive allergic diseases at a fundamental level was entirely novel at the time but this observation has since been confirmed by many research groups and is now a widely accepted principal in allergic disease pathogenesis. Two questions immediately arose-where does the protease come from and what is the molecular mechanism by which proteases trigger allergic responses.

In Mucosal Immunology. Dr. Corry provided the first evidence that proteases in domestic human environments are derived from fungi and further demonstrated that fungi can produce asthma-like disease in mice by infecting the airway through a protease-dependent mechanism.

Finally, his Science paper provided the molecular mechanism by which airway proteases initiate asthma-like inflammation and disease

Dr. Corry’s nomination was based on the following publications:

Kheradmand F, Kiss A, Xu J, Lee SH, Kolattukudy PE, Corry DB. A Protease-Activated Pathway Underlying Th Cell Type 2 Activation and Allergic Lung Disease. J Immunol. 2002 Nov 15;169(10):5904-11.

Millien VO, Lu W, Shaw J, Yuan X, Mak G, Roberts L, Song LZ, Knight JM, Creighton CJ, Luong A, Kheradmand F, Corry DB. Cleavage of fibrinogen by proteinases elicits allergic responses through Toll-like receptor 4. Science. 2013 Aug 16;341(6147):792-6.

Porter P, Susarla SC, Polikepahad S, Qian Y, Hampton J, Kiss A, Vaidya S, Sur S, Ongeri V, Yang T, Delclos GL,Abramson S, Kheradmand F, Corry DB. Link between allergic asthma and airway mucosal infection suggested by proteinase-secreting household fungi. Mucosal Immunol. 2009 Nov;2(6):504-17