On June 2-3, 2016, BRN organized its second international meeting: “The Microbiome in Respiratory Medicine”

Co-organized with the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG), and endorsed by the European Respiratory Society (ERS), Ciberes and SEPAR, the meeting consisted of a scientific workshop (2nd June 2016) followed by an open symposium(3th June 2016).
In recent years the use of culture-independent microbiological techniques has enabled tremendous growth in understanding how large amounts of microbiological organisms: bacteria, fungi and viruses, collectively known as the microbiome, coexist in intimate contact with different body surfaces, both in health and disease. The lung is not an exception to this phenomenon, and this fact has challenged the previous belief that the healthy lung was sterile. Understanding the nature of the relationship between the lung microbiome and the respiratory epithelial surfaces that are in close contact with it, appears as one of the more promising research fields in respiratory medicine.
Today, a large body of evidence supports the concept that dysregulation of host-microbiota crosstalk at body surfaces may underlie chronic inflammatory disorders. As a consequence, from the clinical point of view, there is a growing interest in determining the potential value of the airway microbiome composition as a progression that eventually could prompt specific therapeutic interventions. However, before this can be implemented, several challenges have to be considered such as: 1) the harmonization of methodologies for airway sampling and sample processing, 2) the understanding of the broader interactions of the microbiome components and how they impact the lung disease pathogenesis and 3) the functional characterization of the respiratory microbiome using proteomic, transcriptomic, metabolomic and animal models. These and other relevant questions about this exciting field have to be addressed in this meeting.
The workshop brought together around 30 global scientific leaders from different disciplines (genomics, systems biology, epidemiology, clinical research, etc.) with the aim to debate the current developments in the topic “Microbiome in respiratory medicine”, identifying priorities and future opportunities for the next decade.
The open symposium provided a broad, transdisciplinary view of the topic to a larger audience and delve deeper into the topic, with a more educational approach. Below you will find complete information for each presentation of the symposium (video, slides, abstract and speaker’s CV).
Videos of the talks
Welcome
Welcome and introduction
Talk 1
The respiratory microbiome: a new frontier in medicine
Talk 2
Understanding the microbiome: how can we determine/analyse it? Technical issues
Talk 3
“Saca la Lengua”: Study of human mouth microbiome as a large citizen science project
Talk 4
The Dynamics of the Lung Microbiome during Health and Disease
Talk 5
Microbiome in COPD: Pitfalls and Progress
Talk 6
Microbial dysbiosis in bronchiectasis and cystic fibrosis
Talk 7
Respiratory Microbiome in IPF: Pathogenesi, Progression and Exacerbations
Talk 8
Host-microbe interplay sets the lower airway microenvironment in lung transplantation
Talk 9
Lesson from the human gut microbiome
Talk 10
The gut microbiome in HIV infection
You can download the program here.
For further information: