Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis - Research for Your Health - Research for Your Health

The NHLBI is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Institutes of Health (NIH)—the nation’s biomedical research agency that makes important scientific discoveries to improve health and save lives. We are committed to advancing science and translating discoveries into clinical practice to promote the prevention and treatment of heart, lung, blood, and sleep disorders including hypersensitivity pneumonitis. Learn about the current and future NHLBI efforts to improve health through research  and scientific discovery.

Improving health with current research

Learn how we are translating current research into improved health for people with hypersensitivity pneumonitis.

  • NIH Center for Human Immunology, Autoimmunity, and Inflammatory Diseases. We continue to support the NIH Center for Human Immunology as it promotes research on normal immune system processes and the problems that lead to diseases caused by the immune system that cause heart, lung, blood and sleep disorders including hypersensitivity pneumonitis.
  • NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network. We continue to support the NCATS Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network, which is focused on translating scientific discovery into new interventions such as diagnostics, treatments, and procedures that improve health. Our contributions to the larger effort focus on rare lung disease including hypersensitivity pneumonitis. 

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Learn about some of the pioneering research contributions we have made over the years that have improved clinical care.

  • NIH Respiratory Disease Task Force. In 1972, we helped this Task Force develop the first national report on interstitial lung diseases, a family of disorders that includes hypersensitivity pneumonitis.
  • NHLBI-sponsored clinical trials. We supported the Epidemiology of Interstitial Lung Disease study, which helped estimate how many total and new cases of hypersensitivity pneumonitis occur each year in the United States.
  • NHLBI Specialized Center of Research in Occupational and Immunologic Lung Disease. Our center collected data that have helped us control and prevent acute and chronic lung damage due to inhalation of environmental and occupational agents. Visit Specialized Center of Research in Occupational and Immunologic Lung Disease for more information.
  • NHLBI Office of Rare Diseases workshop on hypersensitivity pneumonitis. In 2004, we led this working group to identify scientific needs and opportunities for hypersensitivity pneumonitis. Read the full report from this workshop for more information, and learn about the recommendations we support to help improve the health of people with hypersensitivity pneumonitis.

Advancing research for improved health

In support of our mission, we are committed to advancing research on interstitial lung diseases including hypersensitivity pneumonitis.

  • We fund research. The research we fund today will help improve our future health. Our Division of Lung Disease, specifically the Immunology/Fibrosis program of the Lung Biology and Disease Branch, oversees research we fund on interstitial lung disease including hypersensitivity pneumonitis. Search the NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools (RePORT) to learn about research NHLBI is funding on hypersensitivity pneumonitis or other interstitial lung diseases. The NHLBI Strategic Vision highlights ways we may support research over the next decade.
  • We stimulate high-impact research. The NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) Program has the potential to help study rare chronic lung diseases such as hypersensitivity pneumonitis by integrating large genetic, environmental, imaging, clinical and other data sets from large patient cohorts.

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Our TOPMed program has the potential to address recommendations made at our 2013 Prevention of Chronic Lung Diseases meeting and that remain relevant to hypersensitivity pneumonitis research. For example, the recommendations called for research to define lung health across the lifespan so we can more precisely determine when disease begins. Through TOPMed and other collaborations, we hope to advance science so health professionals will be able to better predict who will develop hypersensitivity pneumonitis, identify subtypes of disease, and deliver personalized interventions to preempt, prevent, and treat disease.

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