Peter J Barnes

• DM, DSc, FRS, FMedSci, FRCP, FCCP, FERS
• Head of Department at Imperial College London

Background Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is associated with accelerated lung ageing and cellular senescence. Small airway fibroblasts (SAF) are senescent in COPD and may be implicated in small airways disease. Senescent cells are in a permanent state of cell cycle arrest with increased expression of cell cycle inhibitors p16Ink4a and...

Background Thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) orchestrates eosinophilic inflammation, which may increase during asthma exacerbations. In contrast, microRNA-1 (miR-1) inhibits TSLP-mediated eosinophil trafficking in lung endothelium. Whether the balance of TSLP and miR-1 levels determines the response to oral corticosteroids (OCSs) during the treat...

Introduction Understanding the interplay of immune mediators in relation to clinical outcomes during acute infection has the potential to highlight immune networks critical to symptom recovery. The objective of the present study was to elucidate the immune networks critical to early symptom resolution following severe acute respiratory syndrome cor...

Rationale: Small airways disease (SAD) is a key early-stage pathology of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). COPD is associated with cellular senescence whereby cells undergo growth arrest and express the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) leading to chronic inflammation and tissue remodelling. Parenchymal derived fibroblas...

Rationale: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is associated with the acceleration of lung aging, demonstrated by the accumulation of senescent cells in lung tissue. MicroRNA (miR)-34a is induces senescence by suppressing the key anti-aging molecule, sirtuin-1 (SIRT1). Senescent cells spread senescence to neighboring and distant cells, whi...

What is this summary about? Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) are a type of medication delivered via an inhaler device that are commonly used in the treatment of asthma. ICS can also be used to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a progressive respiratory condition in which the lungs become worse over time. However, unlike in asthma, IC...

COPD is a heterogenous disease and there is ongoing need to identify biomarkers for treatable endotypes. Nasosorption is a non-invasive and safe way of sampling the respiratory tract to obtain undiluted endothelial lining fluid. This study investigates whether nasosorption can be used to characterise COPD.Nasosorption was performed on 23 non-smoker...

The inflammatory cytokine IL-36γ is increased in COPD lungs, whereas its endogenous inhibitor IL-36 receptor antagonist (IL-36RA) is reduced. IL-36 receptor signalling drives neutrophilic inflammation. Macrophages are critical in modulating lung inflammation and clearance of bacteria but the effect of IL-36γ on macrophages is not fully understood.T...

Background COPD is associated with cellular senescence and fibrosis. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are membrane-derived vesicles involved in intercellular communication. EVs contain miRNAs, mRNA and proteins and have been implicated in COPD to induce senescence and the transition of fibroblast to myofibroblasts. This study examined whether EVs deriv...

Adenosine 5’-triphosphate (ATP) is found in every cell of the body where it plays a critical role in cellular metabolism and energetics. ATP is released from cells under physiologic and pathophysiologic conditions; extracellular ATP acts as an autocrine and paracrine agent. Its effects on targeted cells are mediated by subtypes of purinergic recept...

Background Neutrophil migration into the airways is a key process in neutrophilic asthma. Developmental endothelial locus‐1 (DEL‐1), an extracellular matrix protein, is a neutrophil adhesion inhibitor that attenuates neutrophilic inflammation. Methods Levels of DEL‐1 were measured in exhaled breath condensate (EBC) and serum in asthma patients by...

Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) are the mainstay of treatment for asthma, but their role in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is debated. Recent randomised controlled trials (RCTs) conducted in patients with COPD and frequent or severe exacerbations demonstrated a significant reduction (~25%) in exacerbations with ICS in combination with d...

Endogenous inhibitory mechanisms promote resolution of inflammation, enhance tissue repair and integrity, and promote homeostasis in the lung. These mechanisms include steroid hormones, regulatory T cells, IL-10, prostaglandin E2, prostaglandin I2, lipoxins, resolvins, protectins, maresins, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor, adrenomedullin, nitric o...

Context. Filamentary structures in the interstellar medium are closely related to star formation. It is possible that the dense gas mass fraction (DGMF) or clump formation efficiency in large-scale filaments determine whether or not they end up hosting star formation activity. Aims. We aim to automatically identify large-scale filaments, as well as...

Background: In 2008, a dedicated American Thoracic Society (ATS)/European Respiratory Society (ERS) task force published a paper on the possible use and limitations of clinical outcomes and biomarkers to evaluate the impact of pharmacological therapy in COPD patients. Since then our scientific understanding of COPD has increased considerably since...

Context. Filamentary structures in the interstellar medium are closely related to star formation. Dense gas mass fraction (DGMF) or clump formation efficiency in large-scale filaments possibly determine their hosting star formation activities. Aims. We aim to automatically identify large-scale filaments, characterize them, investigate their associa...

Expression levels of microRNAs (miRNAs) in single cells are low and conventional miRNA detection methods require amplification that can be complex, time-consuming, costly and may bias results. Single cell microfluidic platforms have been developed; however, current approaches are unable to absolutely quantify single miRNA molecules expressed in sin...

Increasing evidence suggests that there is acceleration of lung ageing in chronic lung diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), with the accumulation of senescent cells in the lung. Senescent cells fail to repair tissue damage and release an array of inflammatory proteins, known as the...

Exposure to air pollution is a major contributor to the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) worldwide. Indeed, most recent estimates suggest that 50% of the total attributable risk of COPD may be related to air pollution. In response, the GOLD Scientific Committee performed a comprehensive review on this topic, qualitativel...

Viral infection due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) induce a dynamic immune environment. Using nasal mucosal samples in 139 participants from the STOIC study (community-based randomised clinical trial for the use of budesonide in early onset SARS-CoV-2, NCT04416399), we applied prede ned immune mediator nodes in rela...

Executive summary of the Global Strategy for Prevention, Diagnosis and Management of COPD 2023: the latest evidence-based strategy document from the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) https://bit.ly/3KCaTGe

Tumor-necrosis factor (TNF) is recognized as a therapeutic target in inflammatory diseases, including asthma. In severe forms of asthma, biologics such as anti-TNF are rendered to be investigated as therapeutic options in severe asthma. Hence, this work is done to assess the efficacy and safety of anti-TNF as a supplementary therapy for patients wi...

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has caused severe illness and mortality for millions worldwide. Despite the development, approval and rollout of vaccination programmes globally to prevent infection by SARS-CoV-2 and the development of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), treatments are still urgently needed...

Optimising asthma diagnosis is an essential part of global strategies to reduce the excessive illness burden from asthma. New understanding about how to address the complexity and heterogeneity of the different forms of asthma mean that asthma diagnosis now requires a compound diagnostic approach and label. Eliciting the typical symptoms and abnorm...

Current treatments fail to modify the underlying pathophysiology and disease progression of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), necessitating alternative therapies. Here, we show that COPD subjects have increased IL-36γ and decreased IL-36 receptor antagonist (IL-36Ra) in bronchoalveolar and nasal fluid compared to control subjects. IL-36...

Autophagy (or macroautophagy) is a key cellular process that removes damaged molecules (particularly proteins) and subcellular organelles to maintain cellular homeostasis. There is growing evidence that abnormalities in autophagy may contribute to the pathogenesis of many chronic diseases, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease...

The Structure, Excitation, and Dynamics of the Inner Galactic InterStellar Medium (SEDIGISM) survey has produced high (spatial and spectral) resolution ¹³ CO (2−1) maps of the Milky Way. It has allowed us to investigate the molecular interstellar medium in the inner Galaxy at an unprecedented level of detail and characterise it into molecular cloud...

There is a marked increase in oxidative stress in the lungs of patients with COPD, as measured by increased exhaled 8-isoprostane, ethane, and hydrogen peroxide in the breath. The lung may be exposed to exogenous oxidative stress from cigarette smoking and indoor or outdoor air pollution and to endogenous oxidative stress from reactive oxygen speci...

The Structure, Excitation, and Dynamics of the Inner Galactic InterStellar Medium (SEDIGISM) survey has produced high (spatial and spectral) resolution $^{13}$CO (2-1) maps of the Milky Way. It has allowed us to investigate the molecular interstellar medium in the inner Galaxy at an unprecedented level of detail and characterise it into molecular c...

Background Community-based clinical trials of the inhaled corticosteroid budesonide in early COVID-19 have shown improved patient outcomes. We aimed to understand the inflammatory mechanism of budesonide in the treatment of early COVID-19. Methods The STOIC trial was a randomised, open label, parallel group, phase 2 clinical intervention trial whe...

We present one of the very first extensive classifications of a large sample of molecular clouds based on their morphology. This is achieved using a recently published catalogue of 10663 clouds obtained from the first data release of the SEDIGISM survey. The clouds are classified into four different morphologies by visual inspection and using an au...

We present one of the very first extensive classifications of a large sample of molecular clouds based on their morphology. This is achieved using a recently published catalogue of 10663 clouds obtained from the first data release of the SEDIGISM survey. The clouds are classified into four different morphologies by visual inspection and using an au...

A recent study shows that chemokine receptor 1 (CCR1) plays a role in eosinophilic inflammation and that its ligand CCL15 is increased in asthmatic eosinophils (Du et al.). A companion study reports that N-truncated forms of CCL15 generated by tissue proteases induce biased CCR1 signaling (Shao et al.). These insights may provide the basis for the...

Background Inhaled medications are central to treatment of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), yet critical inhaler technique errors are made by up to 90% of patients. In the clinical research setting, recruitment of subjects with poor inhaler technique may give a false impression of both the benefits and the necessity of add-o...

Background and objectives: The burden of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) disproportionately affects patients in low to middle-income countries. Although the Theophylline and Steroids in COPD Study (TASCS) showed no clinical benefit from administering low-dose theophylline and prednisone in COPD patients compared to placebo, it was hyp...

Background SARS-CoV-2 infection of the respiratory system can progress to a multi-systemic disease with aberrant inflammatory response. Cellular senescence promotes chronic inflammation, named as senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). We investigated whether COVID-19 disease is associated with cellular senescence and SASP. Methods Autop...

Cellular senescence contributes to the pathophysiology of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cardiovascular disease. Using endothelial colony-forming-cells (ECFC), we have demonstrated accelerated senescence in smokers and patients with COPD compared with non-smokers. Subgroup analysis suggests that ECFC from patients with COPD on inh...

Persistent ill health after acute COVID-19-referred to as long COVID, the post-acute COVID-19 syndrome, or the post-COVID-19 condition-has emerged as a major concern. We undertook an international consensus exercise to identify research priorities with the aim of understanding the long-term effects of acute COVID-19, with a focus on people with pre...

Context. The formation processes of massive stars are still unclear but a picture is emerging involving accretion disks and molecular outflows in what appears to be a scaled-up version of low-mass star formation. A census of outflow activity towards massive star-forming clumps in various evolutionary stages has the potential to shed light on massiv...

Vaccinations against SARS-CoV-2 are effective in COVID-19. However, with limited vaccine access, vaccine hesitancy and variant breakthroughs, there is still a need for effective and safe early treatments. Two community-based clinical trials of the inhaled corticosteroid, budesonide, have recently been published showing and improvement in patients w...

The morphology of the Milky Way is still a matter of debate. In order to shed light on uncertainties surrounding the structure of the Galaxy, in this paper, we study the imprint of spiral arms on the distribution and properties of its molecular gas. To do so, we take full advantage of the SEDIGISM (Structure, Excitation, and Dynamics of the Inner G...

The morphology of the Milky Way is still a matter of debate. In order to shed light on uncertainties surrounding the structure of the Galaxy, in this paper, we study the imprint of spiral arms on the distribution and properties of its molecular gas. To do so, we take full advantage of the SEDIGISM survey that observed a large area of the inner Gala...

Background: The global prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has increased markedly in recent decades. Given the scarcity of resources available to address global health challenges and respiratory medicine being relatively under-invested in, it is important to define research priorities for COPD globally. In this paper, we aim...

Current treatments fail to modify the underlying pathophysiology and disease progression of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), necessitating novel therapies. Here, we show that COPD patients have increased IL-36γ and decreased IL-36 receptor antagonist (IL-36Ra) in bronchoalveolar and nasal fluid compared to control subjects. IL-36γ is d...