Translational Research in Lung Biology and Disease

肺部疾病是美国发病率和死亡率的重要原因。虽然所有其他主要死因都在减少，但肺部疾病造成的年龄调整死亡率继续上升。本次COBRE III期续期申请的总体目的是继续佛蒙特大学医学院佛蒙特肺中心（VLC）肺生物学和疾病研究项目的发展。VLC计划的基石是卓越。科学优势包括气道上皮细胞生物学、囊性纤维化、哮喘炎症、肺生理学、转化动物研究和肺部疾病发病机制的临床研究。在上一个资助周期中，我们继续积累了生产力记录，包括：招募了大量训练有素的博士和医学博士肺病科学家，高影响力的同行评审出版物，以及持续和可观的外部资助增加。

Lung disease is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. While all other major causes of death are decreasing, age-adjusted mortality due to lung disease continues to rise. The overall purpose of this COBRE Phase III renewal application is to continue the development of the research program in Lung Biology and Disease at The Vermont Lung Center (VLC) of the University of Vermont College of Medicine. The keystone of the VLC program is excellence. The scientific strengths include airway epithelial cell biology, cystic fibrosis, asthma inflammation, lung physiology, translational animal studies, and clinical investigation into the pathogenesis of lung disease. In the last funding cycle we have continued to amass a record of productivity including: recruitment of a critical mass of well trained PhD and MD pulmonary scientists, high-impact peer-reviewed publications and continued as well as considerable increase in extramural funding. A critical requirement for the continued success of the Vermont Lung Center is the stimulating environment in which optimal career development can occur. The current goals of the VLC-COBRE are therefore to: 1) Develop the careers of a group of talented MD and PhD biomedical investigators 2) Provide skilled mentoring and consultation on com petitive scientific approaches 3) Maintain a "cutting edge" research milieu 4) Develop a clinical studies core, maintain transgenic/knockout animal and small animal phenotyping core, This proposed program will build towards sustainability of the VLC by forming the nexus from which center grant applications will be created. This proposal also addresses the urgent need to expand and support translational multidisciplinary research at UVM, because this is how advances in basic molecular, cellular and genetic science are converted into new methods of diagnosis and therapy.