Lung diseases are leading causes of death and disability globally, with about 65 million people suffering from COPD, and 334 million from asthma. Each year, tens of millions of people develop and can die from lung infections such as pneumonia and TB. Systemic inflammation may induce and exacerbate local inflammatory diseases in the lungs, and local inflammation can in turn cause systemic inflammation. There is increasing evidence of the coexistence of systemic and local inflammation in patients suffering from asthma, COPD, and other lung diseases, and the co-morbidity of two or more local inflammatory diseases often occurs. For example, rheumatoid arthritis frequently occurs together with, and promotes the development of, pulmonary hypertension. This co-morbidity significantly impacts quality of life, and can result in death for some patients.
Current treatment options for lung disease are neither always effective, nor condition-specific; there is a desperate need for novel therapeutics in the field. Additionally, the molecular and physiological significance of most major lung diseases is not well understood, which further impedes development of new treatments, especially in the case of coexistent lung diseases with other inflammatory diseases. Great progress has been made in recent years in many areas of the field, particularly in understanding the molecular geneses, regulatory mechanisms, signalling pathways, and cellular processes within lung disease, as well as basic and clinical technology, drug discovery, diagnoses, treatment options, and predictive prognoses.
This is the first text to aggregate these developments. In two comprehensive volumes, experts from all over the world present state-of-the-art advances in the study of lung inflammation in health and disease. Contributing authors cover well-known as well as emerging topics in basic, translational, and clinical research, with the aim of providing researchers, clinicians, professionals, and students with new perspectives and concepts. The editors hope these books will also help to direct future research in lung disease and other inflammatory diseases, and result in the development of novel therapeutics.
Dr. Yong-Xiao Wang is a Full Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Albany Medical College, Albany, New York, USA. He received his M.D. at the Wannan Medical College (China), Ph.D. at the Fourth Military Medical University (China), and postdoctoral training at the Technical University of Munich (Germany) as well as the University of Pennsylvania (USA). Dr. Wang’s primary research interests have focused on basic, translational, and drug discovery research concerning cardiac arrhythmias and hypertrophy, pulmonary hypertension, asthma, and diabetes for over 30 years. In particular, he has had extensive research experience in the studies of the molecular geneses, regulatory mechanisms, network pathways, physiological functions, and the critical roles of calcium, redox, inflammatory, and other signaling in the aforementioned illnesses. Dr. Wang has been the corresponding author, first author, and key contributor in numerous publications in highly peer-reviewed journals including Nature Commun, Antioxid Redox Signal, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, Free Radic Biol Med, Cell Calcium, J Gen Physiol, J Biol Chem, FASEB J, Nature, Circ Res, and more. He has been the editor of several academic books in the field including a recent one entitled “Pulmonary Vasculature Redox Signaling” that was published by Springer in 2017. Dr. Wang has been the principal investigator on multiple research grants and awards from the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, and other agencies. He has collaborated with numerous well-known scientists, served on various grant review panels, been the Editor-In-Chief and Editorial Board Member for several scientific journals, and trained a number of scholars, some of whom have become well-known independent investigators in the field.
