Research presentation

Respiratory diseases have a major impact in medical and socio-economic terms. It is against this backdrop that the CEPR is aimed to develop innovative research that gives a better understanding of the pathophysiology of these diseases and improves inhalation therapy devices.

These activities therefore fall in line with Inserm’s scientific priorities, particularly those of the former ITMO Institute, “Immunology, Haematology, Pulmonology (IHP)”, with which the CEPR was associated for the first part of its mandate. In fact, included in the document of the national research strategy of this ITMO (ITMO IHP, 2013 https://ihp.aviesan.fr/index.php?pagendx=185), were recommendations to: 

  1. identify the mechanisms at work in respiratory mucosal cell alterations and characterise their regulation during inflammatory and infectious processes;
  2. identify the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate tissue remodelling in the various structures of the respiratory system;
  3. develop better targeted treatment strategies.


It is important to emphasise that each of these three objectives was met by CEPR teams 1, 2 and 3 respectively, by focusing their efforts on infectious respiratory diseases (such as influenza or P. aeruginosa pneumonia) or inflammatory diseases (such as COPD and fibrosis).

This translational research has yielded an abundance of results that are complementary. Also, knowledge transfer from CEPR’s scientific programmes was achieved both at the academic level (e.g. publications, oral presentations, student training, conferences organisation, etc), at the socio-economic level (e.g. acquisition of licences, patents deposits, development of public-private partnerships, etc) and at the clinical level (e.g. coordination of three national “PHRC” programs by clinicians affiliated with the CEPR’s three teams, etc).