Academia Europaea Cardiff Knowledge Hub hosts Asthma UK meeting
On 6th November, the Academia Europaea Cardiff Knowledge Hub hosted an Asthma UK meeting, Curing and Preventing asthma; where do we go next? The meeting, held at the Hadyn Ellis Building, Cardiff University, was chaired by Academia Europaea member and Founder Chair of the Clinical & Veterinary Section of Academia Europaea, Professor Stephen Holgate CBE MAE.
Delegates specialising in this area of medicine attended from as far as San Francisco. Dr Samantha Walker, Deputy Chief Executive, Asthma UK welcomed the group before Professor Ole Petersen, Vice-President of Academia Europaea, gave the delegates an overview of Academia Europaea and an insight into our work in the European Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) on the production of independent evidence review reports for the European Commission.
Professor Stephen Holgate MAE spoke about the lessons learnt about asthma so far and the challenges ahead. Since 1997, Professor Holgate has been a Medical Research Council Clinical Research Professor of Immunopharmacology and an Honorary Consultant Physician at Southampton University and Foundation NHS Trust. He was also Chair of Main Panel A (Biomedical & Life Sciences) for REF2014, the UK Government’s research excellence framework for evaluating all university-based research in the UK.
Other speakers included:
- Professor Liam Heaney, Queen’s University Belfast
- Assistant Professor Michael Peters, University of California San Francisco
- Philip Seagrave, Asthma UK Research and Policy Volunteer
- Dr Jean-Charles Guéry, Université Toulouse III
- Professor Miriam Moffatt, Imperial College London
- Professor Frank Kelly, King’s College London
- Professor Jaclyn Smith, University of Manchester
- John Riley, GlaxoSmithKline
- Magda Chlebus, European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations
Professor Sven-Erik Dahlén MAE came from Stockholm to chair the panel discussion: what research is needed to drive the development of new therapeutic targets and prevention strategies?
Following the meeting, Asthma UK released a report Asthma still kills: Urgent priorities for the international research community to treat, prevent and cure asthma.
The report, put together by Asthma UK and the many respiratory experts who attended the meeting, identifies urgent priorities for the research community and highlights the need for funding to address these issues. The short video below provides further information.