Infectious inflammatory processes are frequently part of a chronic disease and cause tissue dysfunction and destruction (examples of such diseases are asthma/COPD, rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel diseases). Recent reports stress the growing need for new and more powerful intervention methodologies for chronic (auto-)immune disorders. The integration of cell biology and molecular genomic approaches provides opportunities to study novel targets for intervention in the destructive aspects of inflammatory processes.

Objectives:

• The development of therapeutic models, employing minimal interventions and using established or newly developed drugs, to prevent and/or treat the exacerbations observed in asthma/COPD.
• The identification of environmental factors acting on disease-related genes, which will lead to the design of new drug treatments.
• The analysis of the inflammatory pathways along which immune responses lead to disease. The study of mechanisms of injury and the determination of predictors of decreased viability and clinical outcome will identify new targets for intervention with potential drugs.