American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Dec 2010
ReviewStrategic plan for lung vascular research: An NHLBI-ORDR Workshop Report.
The Division of Lung Diseases of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, with the Office of Rare Diseases Research, held a workshop to identify priority areas and strategic goals to enhance and accelerate research that will result in improved understanding of the lung vasculature, translational research needs, and ultimately the care of patients with pulmonary vascular diseases. Multidisciplinary experts with diverse experience in laboratory, translational, and clinical studies identified seven priority areas and discussed limitations in our current knowledge, technologies, and approaches. The focus for future research efforts include the following: (1) better characterizing vascular genotype-phenotype relationships and incorporating systems biology approaches when appropriate; (2) advancing our understanding of pulmonary vascular metabolic regulatory signaling in health and disease; (3) expanding our knowledge of the biologic relationships between the lung circulation and circulating elements, systemic vascular function, and right heart function and disease; (4) improving translational research for identifying disease-modifying therapies for the pulmonary hypertensive diseases; (5) establishing an appropriate and effective platform for advancing translational findings into clinical studies testing; and (6) developing the specific technologies and tools that will be enabling for these goals, such as question-guided imaging techniques and lung vascular investigator training programs. Recommendations from this workshop will be used within the Lung Vascular Biology and Disease Extramural Research Program for planning and strategic implementation purposes.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Dec 2010
Comparative StudyTargeted delivery of amikacin into granuloma.
Nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) infection is a growing problem in the United States and remains underrecognized in the developing world. The management of NTM infections is further complicated by several factors, including the need to use high systemic doses of toxic agents, the length of therapy, and the development of drug resistance. ⋯ DC-based drug delivery may be an adjunct and useful method of delivering high local concentrations of antibiotics into mycobacterial granulomas.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Dec 2010
Comparative StudyThreshold of biologic responses of the small airway epithelium to low levels of tobacco smoke.
Epidemiologic data demonstrate that individuals exposed to low levels of tobacco smoke have decrements in lung function and higher risk for lung disease compared with unexposed individuals. Although this risk is small, low-level tobacco smoke exposure is so widespread, it is a significant public health concern. ⋯ The small airway epithelium detects and responds to low levels of tobacco smoke with transcriptome modifications. This provides biologic correlates of epidemiologic studies linking low-level tobacco smoke exposure to lung health risk, identifies the genes most sensitive to tobacco smoke, and defines thresholds at which the lung epithelium responds to low levels of tobacco smoke.