Toward a cure for severe asthma — starting with why it becomes irreversible.
LANFORTE Institute of Biomedical Research is an African biomedical research institute organized around a single defining question: can severe asthma be permanently prevented or reversed by understanding and therapeutically targeting the mechanisms responsible for airway remodeling and loss of immune tolerance? Our Research Division, the Center for Respiratory Biology, pursues that question through its flagship Severe Asthma Research Initiative — building the biological knowledge base from which prevention, disease modification, and eventual curative strategies may one day become possible.
"Our mission is to build the biological evidence base — on airway remodeling and the loss of immune tolerance — that prevention, disease modification, and an eventual cure for severe asthma would have to be built on. We are not there yet. This is long-term work, and it is how we get there."
— Andrew N. Luutu, Founding Principal Investigator · PI-001/2026
Five research themes, working toward a single question
The Center for Respiratory Biology studies airway biology, respiratory immunology, structural lung damage, and the molecular pathology of severe asthma. Its flagship program, the Severe Asthma Research Initiative, breaks the Institute's founding question into five themes: each answers a different part of how severe asthma develops, how it can be caught earlier, and how it might eventually be reversed.
Characterizing the clinical and biological subtypes of severe asthma across African populations, at longitudinal cohort scale.
Identifying and validating molecular biomarkers of disease subtype, progression, and treatment response, supported by a pediatric respiratory biobank.
Applying computational biology and artificial intelligence to biomarker and phenotype data, toward prediction of disease progression before irreversible airway damage occurs.
Investigating the structural and immunological pathways — airway remodeling and loss of immune tolerance — that drive severe, treatment-resistant disease.
Converting validated mechanisms and biomarkers into therapeutic targets, clinical protocols, and implementation research pathways.
The 2026 publication calendar
Five signature papers anchor the Institute's first year, one per research theme, released between July and December 2026. Each is a working milestone toward the founding research agenda, not a finished claim — longitudinal cohort data, mechanistic findings, and predictive models will be revised as the registry and biobank grow.
A diagnostic that catches severe asthma before it becomes irreversible
This is the long-term target: a validated, deployable test that flags a child's disease trajectory early enough to change it. Every biomarker, model, and mechanism the Institute publishes is a step toward that instrument, and each one that clears validation moves into a formal path toward patenting, licensing, and clinical use.
The pediatric respiratory biobank exists to generate biomarkers that hold up outside the lab — validated against real disease outcomes, not just discovery cohorts, and built with regulatory submission in mind from day one.
Most respiratory AI tools classify what's already happened. The Institute's computational models are aimed at the harder problem: flagging which children are heading toward severe, treatment-resistant disease while there's still time to intervene.
Findings that clear validation move through a defined patenting and licensing process, with biotechnology and pharmaceutical partners engaged early enough to shape what gets built, not just what gets published.
What we need from partners right now
The registry needs enrollment sites. The biobank needs sample-processing capacity. The models need statisticians who've worked on longitudinal respiratory data. These are the gaps the Institute is trying to fill in its first year — here's where each kind of partner fits.
Joint grant applications, shared statistical expertise, and access to respiratory biology faculty and graduate researchers.
Enrollment sites for the registry and clinicians willing to serve as site investigators across East Africa.
A route from registry findings into national respiratory health policy and screening guidance.
Early involvement in diagnostic co-development, so validated biomarkers have a path to a real product.
Multi-year commitments — a longitudinal registry and biobank take years to pay off, not one grant cycle.
Developing Africa's next generation of biomedical scientists
The Institute is building a training pipeline for clinician-investigators and translational researchers, recruiting across every stage of a research career to carry the agenda forward over time.
The people behind the science
Wrote PI-001/2026, the assessment that sets out the Institute's founding research agenda, and founded LANFORTE to carry it out. Holds primary responsibility for the Institute's scientific direction, its research infrastructure, and the quality-assurance system governing every document the Institute publishes. Trained in sustainable international development at Brandeis University, with a background spanning tax practice, audit research, and petroleum governance advisory prior to founding the Institute.
Massachusetts General Hospital
Advises on clinical research methodology and epidemiological design across the Institute's translational studies.
Brings direct clinical practice experience in Ugandan paediatric respiratory care to the Institute's phenotyping, biomarker, and translational themes.
Get in touch
We welcome inquiries on research collaboration, scientific partnerships, funding opportunities, graduate research, and clinical or institutional collaboration.