“I am very grateful for the support I have received from MAARA, firstly by way of a travel grant to attend the EAACI conference 2018 in Munich, and then more recently to fund my project ‘Identification and characterisation of allergens from A. fumigatus associated with lung damage in asthma’. This support has enabled me to find new allergens from the important fungus Aspergillus fumigatus that people with asthma respond to, which could be markers of the disease progression in the form of lung damage. To date, I have found eight allergens that have not been described from the fungus before, of which one appears to be related to the presence of bronchiectasis, a form of lung damage, in people with asthma. We hope that this will be the basis of future funding and publications, which we are currently working on.”
Dr Eva-Maria Rick
University of Leicester