CLEAR-IT: Climate-Lung Effects via Airborne Risks - an International Translational Network

We have led advances in the understanding of biological mechanisms in chronic respiratory, including paediatric, respiratory disease and how the airborne exposome, particularly fungi, affect respiratory health. Super pollutants created by climate change, some created and accumulating indoors, accelerate climate change further, affect wider indoor air quality and are linked with worse respiratory health. The mechanism by which indoor air pollution, including super pollutants, affect respiratory function remains incompletely understood. Through this new international collaborative interdisciplinary project, we will accelerate discovery of biological mechanisms linking indoor air pollution with risk of chronic respiratory disease and define the mechanisms underpinning the observed associations. To achieve this goal, we will use new indoor air pollution measurements building on studies of the EMBER consortium, and integrate with advanced lung cell models, multi omics datasets and state-of-the-art statistical approaches to discover and validate novel ‘in vivo’ biomarkers. This research will contribute to the improvement in diagnosis and prevention of respiratory diseases caused by indoor air pollution through mechanistic discovery and define climate-adaptive interventions for air quality and lung health based on the mechanistic insights gained from this project through Lungs Europe, a Brussels-based collaboration between the European Lung Foundation and the European Respiratory Society.