Project partners

• Asthma UK – Dr Samantha Walker
• Imperial College London, UK – Prof Sebastian Johnston
• Karolinska Institutet, Sweden – Prof Sven-Erik Dahlen
• European Federation of Allergy & Airways  Diseases Patients Associations (EFA), Belgium – Susanna Palkonen
• European Lung Foundation, UK – Dr Pippa Powell
• National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece – Dr Nikos Papadopoulos
• University of Southampton, UK – Prof Ratko Djukanovic
• Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research, Switzerland – Prof Cezmi Akdis
• University of Lodz, Poland – Dr Maciej Kupczyk
• Novartis, Switzerland – Dr Thomas Martin
• GlaxoSmithKline, UK – Dr David Myles
• Arrixaca Biohealth Research Institute of Murcia (IMIB) – Prof. Luis Garcia-Marcos MD PhD

Asthma UK is the leading asthma charity in the UK, helping the over five million people living with asthma. Through research, campaigning, health promotion and engagement with the asthma community, the charity aims to significantly reduce the number of asthma deaths, hospitalisations and living lives compromised by asthma. Asthma UK is a significant investor in asthma research within the UK and to date has invested over £50 million into research for better treatments and ultimately a cure for asthma.

Imperial College London enjoys a pre-eminent position nationally and internationally as a place of outstanding research into respiratory disease. Hosts of the National Heart and Lung Institute, its respiratory sciences division contains world-class research groups and was rated best in the world for respiratory science in a recent independent review.

Karolinska Institutet is the leading institute in Sweden for biomedical research and one of the world’s leading medical universities. Karolinska Institutet’s Centre for Allergy Research (CfA) aims to support and develop international research into allergy, with a particular focus on asthma.

European Federation of Allergy and Airways Diseases Patients Associations (EFA) is a non-profit network of allergy, asthma and COPD patients’ organisations, representing 35 national associations in 22 countries and over 400,000 patients. They’re dedicated to making Europe a place where people with allergies, asthma and COPD have the best quality care and a safe environment, live uncompromised lives and are actively involved in all decisions influencing their health.

The European Lung Foundation (ELF) was founded by the European Respiratory Society (ERS) in order to bring together patients, the public and respiratory professionals to positively influence respiratory medicine. ELF aims to communicate respiratory science to those outside of the respiratory field, to ensure that people with lung diseases and the general public have a chance to influence respiratory research and guidelines at a European level.

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens is the oldest state institute of higher education in Greece and among the largest universities in the European Union. The allergy department, located within the ‘P&A Kyriakou’ Children’s Hospital, has considerable European project experience and is the national centre for paediatric allergy and asthma.

University of Southampton’s respiratory research group is well known for its excellence in asthma research, having made contributions to the understanding of the disease and how asthma drugs exert their effects. The group has led or contributed to major clinical trials with novel drugs for asthma and has one of only three respiratory biomedical research units funded by the UK National Institute for Health Research to advance translations research in respiratory medicine.

The Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research (SIAF) was originally established as a research institute for tuberculosis in 1905 and has developed as an allergy and asthma institute in the last 25 years. Research activities at SIAF are focused on immune-pathological mechanisms of allergic, asthmatic and cutaneous inflammations and the structural basis and peculiarities of allergens, as well as development of novel tools for the diagnosis and treatment of allergic disease.

The Medical University of Lodz is one of the leading medical schools in Poland. It’s renowned for its high quality medical education and research with expertise in translational, ‘bed-to-bench’ and personalised medicine studies.

Novatris Pharma AG is a global company dedicated to the research and development of new drugs. They’re committed to discovering, developing and successfully marketing innovative products to prevent and treat diseases, ease suffering and enhance quality of life.

GlaxoSmithKline Research & Development Ltd (GSK) is a global pharmaceutical company that develops and produces medicines for a wide range of disease areas, including asthma. GSK’s headquarters are in the UK but there are centres in both Spain and Belgium. They invest heavily in R&D, with the aim of improving disease treatment and the health of patients.

Arrixaca Biohealth Research Institute of Murcia (IMIB) is one of the new research instruments created for the Spanish Ministry of Health in order to invest funds in clinical and translational research. IMIB is based in a tertiary hospital (“Virgen de la Arrixaca” University Hospital), which is the main hospital for the University of Murcia School of Medicine. In terms of production, IMIB is in the top 5 of all research institutes in Spain and has a specific research line on respiratory diseases, mainly supported by the Respiratory and Allergy units of the Arrixaca Children’s University Hospital. The tasks of EMC within this project are to develop new diagnostic tools for the diagnosis and management of asthma in all age categories and to identify research needs in relation to self-management tools and systems, based on patient reported outcomes. Personalized medicine, an individually tailored healthcare approach to the diagnosis and management of disease is a key concept. In terms of particular relevant experience to EARIP, the Respiratory and Allergy units of the Arrixaca Children’s University Hospital have been engaged in international epidemiological studies on asthma in children for the last 20 years, in which one of the members was usually in the steering committee including the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC), the “Estudio Internacional de Sibilancias en Lactantes” (EISL) or the Global Asthma Network (GAN). This unit has also a special interest in monitoring wheezing diseases through testing lung function in very young infants.