Pneumonia

Coordinator: Dra. Carmen Ardanuy Tisaire

Pneumonia, Lower respiratory tract infections, Molecular microbiological diagnosis, Proteomics, Next Generation sequencing, Antimicrobial stewardship, Antimicrobial resistance.

Respiratory infections are the leading cause of mortality worldwide. The emergence of new pathogens or changes in the existingones makes fightingthema continuous challenge. Furthermore,changes in the target population, such asimmunocompromised patients and increased life expectancy,highlight the need fornew approaches to addressthis problem in the future. Overthelast decade, our consortium has developed three collaborative research programs,which have produced important new scientific knowledge in the field of pneumonia. Furthermore, in the context of COVID-19 pandemic this consortium worked in different lines in the diagnosis, prevention and management of this disease.

Using our current networking experience,we aim to continue improving the knowledge of the interactions between humans and microorganisms in the new collaborative research program PERMERES. This new project has several Work Packages (WP) that address different aspects of the respiratory infections. Among them, WP1 will monitor the development of the project. WP2 will define new immunologicand inflammatoryphenotypes in the context of different infections foruse in futuredecision algorithms, as well asnew markers that could help in the decision-makingprocess. WP 3 will try to personalize the management of respiratory infections throughstudies based on a breakthroughhost-centred approachfor the detection and validation of new microbiological assays and other diagnostic technologies, preventive measures andtreatment algorithms. These and previous findings will be translated into clinical guidelines. Moreover, the short-and long-termsystemic effects of acute and chronic respiratory infections will be analysed. WP 4 will investigatethe pathogen characteristics in the context of different respiratory diseases. The mechanisms and genomics of pathogen adaptationwill be analysed and also the interactionsbetween different microorganisms causing infections. Overall, these three WP should be addressed to depict the basis of a Nationalpneumonianetwork,which will be addressed byWP5. This new network is an ambitious project that will help stockholders to design preventive and treatment guidelines to improve life-expectancy and quality of life. Finally, WP6 will address the dissemination of the results to the scientific community and the general public. Furthermore, the teaching activities will be directed towardPhD programs, educational projectsand national and international symposiums.

This program is planned to last three years and will incorporatethe following approaches: a) the consolidation of a multi-institutional research network (inter-group, inter-program, intra-CIBERes, inter-CIBER);b) internationalization (promoting international collaboration through participation in international projects from both competitive or non-competitive programs, attracting international fellows, promoting the visibility of our results and the interactions between patients and researchers, and promoting collaborations with the industry sector);c) fostering interactions between clinical and basic researchers to influence or change clinical practices.