Stefano Guerra

Stefano Guerra

Director, Epidemiology
Professor, Public Health
Professor, Medicine - (Tenure Track)
Research Scientist, Respiratory Sciences
Professor, BIO5 Institute
Contact
(520) 626-7411

Work Summary

Stefano Guerra's work includes an epidemiologic study, which used a household-based approach to assess prevalence and longitudinal changes in respiratory health. Other biomarker projects include a study on molecular biomarkers of asthma and COPD from the European Community Respiratory Health Survey.

Research Interest

Stefano Guerra, MD, PhD, is a professor of Medicine, the Director of the Population Science Unit at the Asthma and Airway Disease Research Center, and a leading expert in the natural history and biomarkers of obstructive lung diseases, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). As principal investigator, he is engaged in the leadership and coordination of multiple studies that use bio-specimens and phenotypic information from independent epidemiological cohorts to characterize the natural history, profile the risk factors, and identify novel biomarkers of lung diseases.

Publications

Pinto, L., Guerra, S., others, ., & Wijga, A. (2016). Increased risk of asthma in overweight children born large-for-gestational-age. Clinical and Experimental Allergy.
Pinto, L. A., Guerra, S., Anto, J. M., Postma, D., Koppelman, G. H., de Jongste, J. C., Gehring, U., Smit, H. A., & Wijga, A. H. (2017). Increased risk of asthma in overweight children born large for gestational age. Clinical and experimental allergy : journal of the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 47(8), 1050-1056.

Being born large for gestational age (LGA) is a marker of increased growth velocity in fetal life and a risk factor for childhood overweight. Both being born LGA and childhood overweight may influence the development of asthma, although the role of overweight in the association between LGA and childhood asthma is unclear. Importantly, recent studies have suggested that the association between overweight and asthma may be related to non-allergic pathways. If this also applies to the association between LGA and asthma, the association between being born LGA and asthma may be different for atopic and non-atopic children.

Gerhart, K., others, ., Guerra, S., others, ., & Wright, A. (2017). Protective Effect of Breastfeeding on Frequent Cough in Adulthood. Thorax.
Chan, J. Y., Stern, D. A., Guerra, S., Wright, A. L., Morgan, W. J., & Martinez, F. D. (2015). Pneumonia in childhood and impaired lung function in adults: a longitudinal study. Pediatrics, 135(4), 607-16.
BIO5 Collaborators
Stefano Guerra, Fernando Martinez

Diminished lung function and increased prevalence of asthma have been reported in children with a history of early lower respiratory illnesses (LRIs), including pneumonia. Whether these associations persist up to adulthood has not been established.

Hiranrattana, A., others, ., Guerra, S., others, ., & Morgan, W. (2017). Alternaria sensitization at age 6 years is associated with subsequent airway hyper-responsiveness in non-asthmatics. Thorax.