Research 

​Adult KD Study

The management of adults who suffered coronary artery damage from Kawasaki disease in childhood differs in important ways from the usual management of adults with atherosclerosis (typical adult heart disease). Many adult cardiologists are not familiar with the type of damage caused by KD or the optimal management strategies. Feel free to share the attached published reports with your cardiologist. Please contact us at adultkd@ucsd.edu if you have questions.

What you never learned in med school: Care of Kawasaki disease patients for the adult cardiologist

Climate Research

Kawasaki disease (KD) is a pediatric vasculitis and the leading cause of acquired heart disease in children that first emerged in Japan after World War II (Pediatrics; AAP, 2000). KD is now recognized world-wide with over 6,000 cases diagnosed each year in the U.S. Although there is an effective treatment, there is no robust diagnostic test and the diagnosis is often delayed or missed. Without timely treatment, one in four children will suffer heart damage that may lead to heart attack and death. Despite five decades of research, the cause remains unknown. Work by the Kawasaki Disease Research Center (KDRC) at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), using the Japanese dataset of >420,000 cases, has linked fluctuations in KD case numbers with atmospheric conditions including wind direction and speed suggesting an environmental trigger for this devastating disease. Until the environmental trigger(s) for KD are understood, infants and children will continue to suffer preventable heart damage due to delayed or missed diagnosis.

Multiple lines of evidence support the hypothesis that the triggering agent of KD is a wind-borne aerosol. Atmospheric conditions relevant to aerosol transport can thus be used to identify moments of heightened risk for KD, even if the specific aerosol remains unidentified. The KD Climate Team at UCSD and its partners are committed to scaling research and data to enable better understanding of the causes and improved identification of KD, working across four research countries where it is estimated that at least 88,000 children will be affected by the disease by 2027. Discovering the environmental trigger(s) for KD will accelerate creation of a diagnostic test, algorithms to predict exposure, and new treatments.

KD Genetic Study

The team is studying the genes of patients with Kawasaki disease and their biologic parents to see how children are genetically predisposed to developing the disease. An examination of KD patients’ DNA and comparison with DNA from their biologic parents can reveal the ways in which children are genetically predisposed to develop KD and coronary artery aneurysms. To learn more about this study and how to participate, email kdgenetics@ucsd.edu.  At this time, we are only enrolling families whose children have developed coronary artery aneurysms from KD.

Patient-Specific Simulations of Flow in Coronary Artery Aneurysms

We are collaborating with Dr. Alison Marsden and her team at Stanford University to provide patient data from CT scans to enable model building that will help predict risk of clot formation in individual patients.

Proteomics

To investigate the changes in protein expression during the course of KD, we are using an aptamer-based array from SomaLogic to profile protein expression in our KD patients and controls. The platform allows us to measure over 6,000 unique proteins.

Transcriptomics

Study of RNA sequences (transcriptomics) informs us about how the body is responding to the inflammation during acute KD and also the response to different therapies. We study both whole blood RNA and cell-free RNA in a collaboration with Iwijn DeVlaminck and his team at Cornell University. We have created diagnostic tests that use both of these kinds of RNA that are currently undergoing further testing. In collaboration with the DeVlaminck laboratory, we are investigating changes in cell-free RNA in the plasma that can inform us about tissue of injury. This new analyte hold great promise as a diagnostic and prognostic platform.