Kate E. Kyler, MD, MSc, FAAP
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine; Education Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Kansas School of Medicine
Full Biography
Kathryn (Kate) Kyler, MD, MSc, Pediatric Hospital Medicine, received a two-year KL2 Mentored Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) - National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) via a Frontiers Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) subaward for her project, “Obesity’s influence on systemic corticosteroid exposure and response in children with asthma.” The grant covers a project period of July 1, 2024-June 30, 2026.
Children with obesity are 40% more likely than those without obesity to have severe asthma, and they have more asthma attacks and worse outcomes than non-obese children with asthma. Children with obesity and asthma are also prescribed more systemic steroids than non-obese children with asthma.
Systemic steroid precision dosing for children with obesity and asthma could improve asthma outcomes by providing the right dose for the best response. However, the pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) data needed to create precision dosing does not exist for children with obesity and asthma. Pharmacokinetics is how the body processes a drug, and pharmacodynamics is what a drug does to the body. This gap in data must be addressed before precision dosing strategies can be developed.
Dr. Kyler’s project seeks to fill the knowledge gaps by investigating how obesity influences steroid PK (i.e., exposure, or drug levels achieved in the body) and PD treatment response. She is specifically studying methylprednisolone, a commonly used systemic corticosteroid for asthma attacks. Through her clinical and translational research, Dr. Kyler will identify PD biomarkers that show how different target doses affect steroid response in children with obesity. She will also determine how steroid exposure varies between children with and without obesity.
Her project has two aims:
- Determine the differences in steroid-mediated immune cell response in vitro across weight groups.
- Determine the differences in steroid clearance/exposure among asthmatic children with and without obesity.
“Understanding how obesity affects the way a child’s body processes and responds to systemic steroids is a first step to developing safer, and more effective dosing recommendations for treatment of asthma in children with obesity,” said Dr. Kyler. “That is my long-term goal.”
Dr. Kyler’s mentors are Bridgette Jones, MD, MSCR, Allergy & Immunology; Elin Grundberg, PhD, Genomic Medicine Center; Ann Davis, PhD, MPH, Director, Center for Children’s Healthy Lifestyles and Nutrition; and Daniel Gonzalez, PharmD, PhD, Duke University.