Researchers from the Genomics area of ITER have participated in the 2nd International Colloquium on Lung and Airway Fibrosis(ICLAF – International Colloquium on Lung and AirwayFibrosis), held in the city of Athens, Greece, from October 12 to 16, 2024.
This international conference, which is held every two years, brings together multidisciplinary teams made up of research and clinical personnel specialized in basic and translational science. These teams work specifically on the study of diseases associated with interstitial lung anomalies(ILA), including diffuse interstitial lung diseases (ILD). Of these, perhaps the best known due to its relevance and diverse clinical presentations is pulmonary fibrosis, which is associated with multiple lung diseases: idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and familial pulmonary fibrosis, connective tissue disease, lung cancer, severe COVID-19, etc.
Several members of the ITER Genomics team, together with their collaborators (mainly from Spain, UK and USA), presented six papers addressing key topics, such as:
- New approaches in the study of familial pulmonary fibrosis in the Canary Islands;
- Central aspects in the controls needed to ensure the quality and accuracy of the results being obtained in various international initiatives to recruit patients affected by ILD;
- The association of deleterious rare variants with survival in IPF;
- Application of new approaches for susceptibility analysis in IPF;
- Genetic linkage observed between IPF and severe COVID-19 using polygenic risks in patients from the international SCOURGE study.
The publications presented can be consulted here.
With these contributions, ITER continues to advance interstitial lung disease research, providing cutting-edge knowledge and collaborating in important international initiatives.
