A recent estimate by the World Health Organization estimated that over half a billion people across the globe suffer from asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease alone and the incidence is increasing. Last year, 2010, was the year of the lung, and one of its primary objectives was to increase awareness and promote increased research funding for respiratory diseases. This has had some tangible positive effects.

This year the European Respiratory Society's research framework highlighted the disparity between funding for Respiratory Research in Europe versus the impact to the disease. The European Respiratory Society also provided a series of recommendations to tackle this disparity, which are germane to us all. A major challenge is and has been the lack of any cures for these diseases and as such greater emphasis needs to be directed towards developing ways to restore pulmonary structure and function. However, such high impact discoveries must first be disseminated and subjected to peer review before being translated into practice or policy.

In this review, we describe some important advances in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease clinical and basic research and highlight specific contributions to these areas published in Respirology.