The mission of the American Lung Association is to save lives by enhancing lung health and preventing lung disease, with a focus on defeating lung cancer, creating a tobacco-free future, championing clean air for all, and improving the quality of life for those affected by lung disease and their families.
The Emerging Respiratory Pathogen Award aims to deepen the understanding of respiratory infection pathobiology, along with their immediate and long-term implications. It focuses on fostering research in several key areas: uncovering new insights into the basic biology of respiratory viruses to improve treatments and prevention strategies, exploring host factors influencing infection responses, analyzing individual, regional, or social determinants affecting the spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses, implementing case tracking and epidemiology to understand COVID-19 and emerging viruses better, investigating the pathophysiology of long-term effects following respiratory viral infections, and extracting critical lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. This grant provides $100,000 per year for two years to support these endeavors.