Asthma and COPD are common diseases of the conducting airways with high morbidity and unacceptable mortality. Most of our current understanding of disease pathogenesis has focused on inflammation. However, the key role played by formed elements of the lung in these diseases is opening up new therapeutic opportunities derived from understanding lung developmental and tissue injury/repair pathways. The meeting will provide a forum for discussing the connections between epithelial and mesenchymal interactions underpinning airway disease susceptibility, chronicity and natural history.

Conference chair: Stephen Holgate (University of Southampton, UK)

Topics: The origins and progression of chronic airway disease. The airway epithelium as the integrator of environmental insults. Innate immunity in chronic lung disease. Epithelial-mesenchymal interactions in airway wall remodelling.

Abstracts: Abstracts for oral and poster presentation are now invited.