In childhood, asthma is more common in boys than girls. But around the time of puberty, that picture reverses. By mid-life women are twice as likely as men to have asthma.

RSV infection reduces the risk of infection with human rhinovirus, which could have implications for vaccine development and prevention strategies for viral respiratory tract infections in infants.

Lisa Young, M.D., associate professor of Pediatrics and Medicine in the Divisions of Pulmonary Medicine and Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine, has been selected to receive this year's American Thoracic Society (ATS) Public Advisory Roundtable Excellence Award.

As a fellow in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Bradley Richmond, M.D., saw a lot of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), an inflammatory lung disease caused most often by long-term exposure to cigarette smoke.

Investigators in the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine and the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolism recently received a $1.25 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently announced it will provide $157 million in awards to launch a multi-center, seven-year initiative that will investigate how exposure to environmental factors in early development — from conception through early childhood — influences the health of children and adolescents.

Vanderbilt researchers have received an R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study a novel non-invasive imaging approach to detect activation of inflammatory cells in the lungs of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a progressive lung condition that makes breathing difficult.