The Canadian Respiratory Research Network: Origin and Progression of Airway Disease

The Canadian Respiratory Research Network (CRRN), in close partnership with the Canadian Lung Association (CLA) and other partners, will improve patient care and outcomes through creation of an enduring national network of investigators and research platforms to enable innovative, collaborative, respiratory health research that influences decision making and ensures high quality training and career development of a new generation of investigators. The goals of the network are to bring together researchers across disciplines and research themes/pillars to work together in a coordinated fashion in order to improve understanding of the origins and progression of chronic airway diseases in Canada. Our network is composed of more than 50 investigators located at research institutes, academic medical centres, government, public health agencies, and universities across Canada. Our proposed research plan will span all four pillars of health research and will include strong research training and knowledge translation components. The over-arching plan for CRRN is the development of a network approach and research platforms to establish an enhanced understanding of the biology, patho-physiology, prevalence, health outcomes and costs, as well as potential health service and policy solutions related to the origin and progression of airway disease. Our goal is to understand the full burden of chronic airway diseases in Canada (both diagnosed and undiagnosed) and to generate new knowledge that will inform public policy and lead to interventions to reduce the burden of asthma and COPD. As the network matures the platforms that we establish to study airway disease will be adopted to study other respiratory diseases as well.