Mission and Strategy
An innovative research initiative that will have real effects on patient care
The LGRC (Lung Genomics Research Consortium) is a group of top scientists from five U.S. institutions, whose mission is to transform our understanding of chronic lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and interstitial lung disease (ILD) by using the advanced genomic technologies that have emerged from the Human Genome Project.
Our project goals
The LGRC is applying these new technologies in ways that will help us learn more about these devastating lung diseases, with a focus on determining why certain people are more susceptible than others to illness and how to better treat those who are affected. To develop this personalized approach to medicine, we are asking ourselves: What is in a person’s DNA that predisposes him or her to lung disease? How can we provide earlier diagnoses? How can we develop better treatments that are tailored to each individual?
To help the research community answer these and other questions, the LGRC is:
• generating a rich resource of genetic and genomic data about lung disease;
• building a database to catalog the information; and
• sharing the database with the scientific community through an easy-to-use website.
Our strategy
We are studying lung disease tissue samples obtained from the Lung Tissue Research Consortium (LTRC), another ongoing project funded, as we are, by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). By combining the genomic data that we generate with existing clinical information obtained from the LTRC patient samples, we will create an indispensable database to help all interested scientists better understand the causes of lung disease.
We will share the lessons we learn with other researchers and the public in an effort to accelerate scientific discoveries that can benefit patient care, such developing ways to determine a person’s risk for a particular disease, diagnosing disease earlier, and creating treatments tailored to an individual’s unique genetic makeup.
