A golden age of asthma research

More than a decade ago, there was a widely held opinion among respiratory clinicians and researchers that asthma was, for the most part, solved and not worth investing intellectual or financial capital into research. There was certainly a small proportion of the asthma population (<10%) with severe refractory asthma, who merited attention [1]; but the vast majority of asthmatic patients were well served with the available treatment armamentarium of rapid onset bronchodilators (mainly short-acting inhaled β2-agonists (SABAs)), inhaled corticosteroids (ICS), or ICS and long-acting inhaled β2-agonist (LABA) combinations delivered from a single inhaler. There has been an extraordinary increase in the understanding of asthma pathogenesis and treatment over the past decade. The ERJ is launching a series of reviews to highlight these advances in asthma and identify areas that still require investigation. https://bit.ly/2HrPfpO