The National Heart & Lung Institute was delighted to host the first joint meeting with Weill-Cornell at the Guy Scadding Building earlier this month.

The academic meeting held on 7-8 September 2016 was opened by Professor Kim Fox, Head of NHLI, and began with an address by Dr James Kiley of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the USA. Dr Kiley spoke of the need to understand the molecular identity of lung cells, the need for the development of personalized or precision medicine and the use of progenitor cells (a biological cell that can differentiate into a specific type of cell) to treat disease. He stated that the NIH would like to see research focused on implementation and prevention strategies.

Prof Kim Fox opens the meeting

The meeting focused on some of the most common lung diseases being faced by patients and simultaneously tackled by the scientists trying to find answers; these included idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung immunology, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and the microbiome. The gathering was organized by Jadwiga Wedzicha, Fernando J Martinez and Augustine Choi (Head of Respiratory, WC).

The event provided a great opportunity for us to share ideas with our counterparts from overseas in an informal face to face environment. None more so than the poster competition which was judged by Jennifer Quint and Augustine Choi, with the accolades going to Laura Denney of Imperial College London (IC) and Daniel Jones (WC).

On Wednesday afternoon, there was a session on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), with talks by researchers from NHLI and Weill-Cornell. Toby Maher (IC) started with a talk on biomarkers related to mortality, followed by Amanda Wu (WC) on the Clean-up IPF trial which is an innovative approach to precision based therapy.  More talks followed by Athol Wells (IC), Bi-Sen Deng (WC), Adam Byrne (IC), Naftali Kaminski (WC). The panel discussion at the end was a highlight with key opinion leaders in IPF sharing their thoughts on the future direction of research in to IPF. The session, was followed by a speaker’s reception held at the Rectors House, Queen’s Gate.

Thursday morning started early with a session on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Peter Barnes (IC) spoke on novel targets in COPD, Maria Belvisi (IC) on PAR receptors and Suzanne Cloonan (WC) about cigarette smoke increasing mitochondrial iron deposition in mice. James Allinson (IC) spoke about the natural history of chronic bronchitis in the 1946 MRC birth cohort. He showed a wonderful photograph of 300-400 participants in the cohort who recently attended a birth day party at Senate House: unique because they were all born in the same 2 weeks in 1946.

Dr James Kiley addresses the audience

Jenni Quint (IC) spoke about the relationship between atmospheric pollution and hospital admissions, followed by Charalombos Michaeloudes (IC) about mitochondrial dysfunction. Sebastian Johnson (IC) described his work with Patrick Mallia on experimental rhinovirus infection.  Mike Polkey (IC) entertained the audience with a fascinating description of his research on muscle function in COPD and Louise Donnelly (IC) gave an equally interesting talk on macrophage phenotypes and glucocorticoid insensitivity.

After morning coffee, there were talks on lung immunology and ARDS by Clare Lloyd (IC), Kiicki Nakahira (WC) and Kevin Ma (WC). On the final afternoon there were talks on the Microbiome by Miriam Moffatt (IC), Daniel Jones (WC), Simon Brill (IC), Mike Cox (IC). Mary Choi (WC) reminded us that cigarette smoking has an impact on other conditions including kidney injury. The meeting finished with a discussion about future collaborations and future meetings by Augustine Choi and Jadwiga Wedzicha.

Co-authored by professor Terence Seemungal

Head of the Department of Clinical Medical Sciences
The University of The West Indies