The Pittsburgh-Ireland International Lung Conference took place in RCSI on the 16th and 17th of October this year. This unique conference brought together physicians, scientists, nurses and trainees involved in clinical research in pulmonary medicine, critical care, immunology, and infectious disease.
The theme of this year’s conference was: Precision Medicine in Lung Diseases: From Cellular Mechanisms to Clinical Phenotypes. Speakers from both sides of the Atlantic brought novel insights on the role of precision medicine in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), asthma, sleep, acute lung injury, lung cancer, pulmonary hypertension, and aging and fibrosis.
Among them our very own Emma Leacy presented work from her circadian study on circadian rhythms in alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD).
In a cohort of AATD patients and healthy controls, Emma reported that AATD patients showed disruption to circulating cortisol, and that rhythmicity in the alpha-1 protein was lost. Furthermore, AATD monocytes lost their rhythmic expression of BMAL1, and showed excessive cytokine production in response to LPS.
Members of the Respiratory Research group presented their work on bronchoscopy techniques, long-term alpha-1 augmentation therapy, cellular senescence, genetic screening and ADAM17. A good time was had by all.
