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Researchers from BWH and National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver recently received a $37 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to lead the most comprehensive study of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) ever undertaken.
“Our goal with this massive project is to discover genes responsible for this chronic lung disease and to develop a comprehensive data sharing plan so that this study will become a national resource for the scientific community,” said BWH’s Edwin Silverman, MD, PhD, co-principal investigator of the study.
The study’s long-term goal is to find more effective treatments for COPD, an umbrella term for a variety of progressive lung diseases, including emphysema and chronic bronchitis, which damage lung tissue and make it difficult to breathe.
Cigarette smoking causes the majority of COPD cases, but breathing in other kinds of lung irritants may also cause the disease. COPD is the only leading cause of death in the U.S. that has been steadily increasing over the past decade.
“COPD is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, and yet we know so little about the disease,” said James Crapo, MD, professor of medicine at National Jewish and co-principal investigator of the study. “This study will help us determine which smokers are most at risk of developing the disease, who is most likely to have progressive disease and how to more effectively treat it.”
The study will follow smokers with and without COPD. The 16 clinical study centers involved will enroll a total of 10,500 participants, 3,500 of whom will be African American, a population whose COPD rates are rapidly growing and whose risk factors have not been adequately studied.