News from The Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis

I have blogged several times about a wonderful organization who is supporting research to find a cure or treatment for Pulmonary Fibrosis. It is the Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis. They help to fund specific research.

If you are someone with a Interstitial Lung Disease or related to a person suffering with this very difficult diagnosis, please check-in with this organization. Their web site is: http://www.coalitionforpf.org/

The latest information I have received from them is below. They are announcing research grants that I am convinced would not be happening without their support. Tomorrow, there will be a list for previous recipients of the awards and what specific research was funded.

Here is a direct quote from an informational e-mail I received from CPF:

Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis, Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation and American Thoracic Society Announce New Research Grants for Pulmonary Fibrosis Research 
CPF and PFF Commit to ATS to Fund Grants

The Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis (CPF), the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation (PFF), and the American Thoracic Society (ATS), the world’s leading professional organization for pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine, announced that the CPF and PFF will again partner with the ATS to fund Pulmonary Fibrosis (PF) research.

“The CPF is dedicated to this important partnership with ATS and the PFF” said Marvin Schwarz, M.D. chairman of the CPF and the James C. Campbell Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine.   “As the CPF celebrates 10 years of work on behalf of the PF community, it reaffirms its commitment to supporting efforts to find answers to the disease.  We will continue to fund critical research that will 
take us from a disease that is virtually untreatable to one that is curable.”

“We are proud to have joined this partnership with the CPF and ATS in 2009, and are encouraged by the quality of research these grants have funded to date”, said Daniel M. Rose, MD, President of the PFF. 

“Given the urgent need for treatments and the very challenging nature of this disease, this expanded support for the ATS research grant program offers excellent hope for new findings that may lead to a better understanding of PF and earlier opportunities for the development of avenues for treatment”, said Mishka Michon, CEO of the CPF.

The patient organizations will each commit $30,000 per year to co-fund two-year research grants for two consecutive years. The ATS will provide partial funding and management of the grants. 
 
“Pulmonary fibrosis was once considered rare,” said Jesse Roman, M.D., chair of the ATS Scientific Advisory Committee and chair of medicine at the University of Louisville. “We now know it’s not.  In fact, recent studies show that it is on the rise.  And yet, there is no effective treatment. These research grants will help us change that.”

Research in PF has been minimal historically compared with research into other diseases, including diseases that affect fewer Americans and that are not imminently deadly like PF.  However, the joint effort between the ATS and the CPF for the Partnership Grant for Pulmonary Fibrosis was established in 2006.  The Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation joined the partnership in 2009, committing funds to the effort through 2012.

“Even though my research started with this funding partnership, it didn’t stop at the end of two years,” said

Andrew Tager, M.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, a recipient of an ATS/CPF grant award in 2008.  ““It established an important foundation on which to build ongoing research in the search for treatments and a cure.”