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Lung diseases

Chronic lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and severe asthma (SA) affect a significant proportion of the world’s population, killing more than 100,000 people each year. Work at Imperial spans the range of lung diseases, including COPD, IPF, SA and Cystic Fibrosis, together with common respiratory infections induced by viruses (RSV, Influenza and Rhinoviruses), bacteria (TB, bronchiectasis) and fungi. The Immuno-Pathology Network will bring together immunologists, clinicians, bioengineers and data scientists to evaluate the impact of the immune system and immune-focused therapies in improving lung health. Key aims include understanding how inflammation contributes to the heterogeneous disease phenotypes and endotypes observed in patients, trying to predict which asthma patients will respond to novel classes of biologics, developing less invasive techniques to monitor inflammation and understanding the importance of the local pulmonary microbiome in lung disease.