The Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) represents a common syndrome arising from numerous, heterogeneous, and often-independent disease processes. Accordingly, a single ARDS study drug, if uniformly applied to all patients regardless of underlying disease pathophysiology, would likely fail to consistently improve patient outcomes. For clinical studies to overcome this obstacle, a new appreciation of ARDS mechanistic and phenotypic heterogeneity is required, enabling future precision medicine approaches to the treatment of lung injury.
The 2021 Thomas L. Petty Aspen Lung Conference will integrate basic, translational, and clinical approaches to address the impact of ARDS heterogeneity, with a focus on (1) understanding the presence and therapeutic significance of ARDS mechanistic and phenotypic subtypes, (2) exploring multi-cellular and multi-systemic mechanisms responsible for this heterogeneity, and (3) determining how to best account for disease heterogeneity during clinical trial design and outcome assessment. Heterogeneity within COVID-19 ARDS, as well as between COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 ARDS, will also be discussed.
This conference will provide an international forum bringing together leading basic, translational, and clinical ARDS researchers while welcoming trainees in pulmonology and critical care medicine, with the goal of identifying shared interests that will lead to more productive research and more effective personalized therapies. Finally, the varied scientific themes and therapeutic strategies emerging during the conference will be reconciled in a concluding Conference Summary presented by Dr. Thomas Martin (University of Washington).
We will offer three Thomas L. Petty Fellow Travel Awards in the amount of $1,000 each to three female and under-represented minority fellows whose abstracts have been accepted for podium presentations.
In summary, the conference distinguishes itself from other conference in this field by serving as a “think tank” to actively discuss the current state of the field and identify the future directions for basic, translational and clinical research in ARDS.
For more information, contact: Eric Schmidt, M.D., c/o Jeanne Cleary, Thomas L. Petty Aspen Lung Conference, PO Box 1231, Parker, CO 80134 Phone: (303) 358-2797. E-Mail: Jeanne.Cleary@cuanschutz.edu.
The 2021 Aspen Lung Conference has the following learning objectives:
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
“ARDS from the 20th to 21st Century”
Michael A. Matthay, M.D.
San Francisco, California
“Updates in Molecular Phenotyping of ARDS”
Carolyn S. Calfee, M.D.
San Francisco, California
“Genomic Clues to ARDS Heterogeneity”
Nuala Meyer, M.D., M.S. (MSTR)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“WNT Signaling Niches in Alveolar Epithelial Repair”
Tushar Desai, M.D.
Stanford, California
“Regeneration of the Alveolar Epithelium After Acute Lung Injury”
Rachel L. Zemans, M.D.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
“Lung Endothelial Amyloids and Brain Dysfunction After Pulmonary Infection”
Troy Stevens, Ph.D.
Mobile, Alabama
“The Angiopoietins and Tie-2 in Sepsis and ARDS”
Samir Parikh, M.D.
Boston, Massachusetts
“Clinical Trial Design in the Age of Heterogeneity”
B. Taylor Thompson, M.D.
Boston, Massachusetts
“Novel Computational Approaches to Translate Patient
Heterogeneity into Mechanistic Insights”
Lisa Bastarache, M.S.
Nashville, Tennessee
“Neutrophil-Platelet Interactions in ARDS”
Mark R. Looney, M.D.
San Francisco, California
“Macrophage Dynamics and Functional Heterogeneity in Lung Injury and Repair”
Suzanne V. Herold, M.D., Ph.D.
Giessen, Germany
“The Multiple Phenotypes of Chronic Critical Illness”
Catherine “Terri” Hough, M.D., M.S.
Portland, Oregon
CONFERENCE SUMMARY
Thomas R. Martin, M.D.
Seattle, Washington
ARDS in the 21st Century: New Insights into Clinical and Mechanistic Heterogeneity
June 9-12, 2021
Lung and the Immune System: Disease Pathogenesis, Treatment, and Complications with Immunotherapy
June 8-11, 2022