[4][5] In 1980, Holgate completed a two year post doctoral fellowship with K. Frank Austen at the Robert Brigham Hospital and Harvard University, Boston provided by the Dorothy Temple Cross MRC endowment and the Wellcome Trust.
In 2002, Holgate collaborated with Donna Davies and Genome Therapeutics Corporation in Waltham, Mass, USA to identify the first novel asthma susceptibility gene of ADAM33 that encodes a metalloprotease linked to airway hyperresponsiveness and remodelling.
This originated from the theory that in severe asthma, the airways behaved like a chronic wound with impaired epithelial repair and underlying tissue remodelling involving the deposition of new matrix, mucous metaplasia and proliferation of smooth muscle.
This led to the subsequent discovery that epithelial cells from those with moderate-severe asthma were deficient in their ability to generate an innate interferon beta response when infected by human rhinoviruses.
[6] In 2003 Holgate, Donna Davies and Ratko Djukanovic [Wikidata] used this patented information to create the University spin-off company Synairgen to explore the potential therapeutic benefits of inhaled interferon beta in attenuating virus-induced exacerbations of asthma and COPD.