Peter Barnes is Professor of Thoracic Medicine at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Head of Respiratory Medicine at Imperial College and Honorary Consultant Physician at Royal Brompton Hospital, London. He qualified at Cambridge and Oxford Universities was appointed to his present post in 1987. He has published over 1000 peer-review papers on asthma, COPD and related topics and has edited over 40 books. He is also amongst the top 50 most highly cited researchers in the world and has been the most highly cited clinical scientist in the UK and the most highly cited respiratory researcher in the world over the last 20 years. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2007, the first respiratory researcher for over 150 years. He is currently a member of the Scientific Committee of the WHO/NIH global guidelines on asthma (GINA) and COPD (GOLD). He also serves on the Editorial Board of over 30 journals and is currently an Associate Editor of Chest and respiratory Editor of PLoS Medicine. He has given several prestigious lectures, including the Amberson Lecture at the American Thoracic Society and the Sadoul Lecture at the European Respiratory Society. Jeffrey M. Drazen, MD, was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated from Tufts University with a major in physics, and from Harvard Medical School. He served his medical internship and residency at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and was a clinical fellow and research fellow at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. Thereafter, he joined the Pulmonary Divisions of the Harvard hospitals and served for many years as chief of the combined Pulmonary Divisions at Beth Israel and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals.Currently, he is a Senior Physician at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the Distinguished Parker B. Francis Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, as well as Professor of Physiology, Harvard School of Public Health and adjunct Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.He has served on the NIH Respiratory and Applied Physiology Study Section, the NIH Pulmonary Disease Advisory Council, the NIH Lung Biology and Pathology Study Section, and the NHLBI Advisory Council.Through his research, he defined the role of novel endogenous chemical agents in asthma. This led to four new licensed pharmaceuticals for asthma used in the treatment of millions of people worldwide. He has published nearly 500 papers and edited 6 books.He has been a member of the editorial boards of many prestigious journals, including: the Journal of Applied Physiology, American Journal of Physiology, Pulmonary Pharmacology, Experimental Lung Research, Journal of Clinical Investigation, American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology, and the American Journal of Medicine. In addition, he has been associate editor of the Journal of Clinical Investigation and the American Review of Respiratory Disease.In 2000, he assumed the post of editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. During his tenure, the Journal has published major papers advancing the science of medicine.Neil Thomson is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Glasgow, Head of Respiratory Medicine within the Division of Immunology, Infection & Inflammation and Honorary Consultant at Gartnavel General Hospital, Glasgow. He graduated from the University of Glasgow and undertook postgraduate training in Glasgow, London and McMaster University, Canada. He is a former member of the Committee for Safety of Medicine and former Chair of the Scientific Committee of the British Lung Foundation. He has co-edited several textbooks on asthma and COPD and published over 150 peer-reviewed papers on asthma. His current research interests include corticosteroid insensitivity in smokers with asthma, biomarkers in asthma and COPD and assessment of novel treatments for asthma.

"...textbooks, such as the one discussed here, are all essential in shaping a necessary way forward to fight chronic respiratory diseases worldwide...At first it was a surprise to see that this impressive textbook covered both asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in one volume. Asthma and COPD: Basic Mechanisms and Clinical Management is edited and written by prominent individuals who have done everything possible in the past to convey the message that asthma and COPD are two different diseases: that they are characterised by different risk factors; have a different pathophysiology; are characterised by clinical phenotypes that are distinctly different; require different therapeutic strategies; and probably pose very different challenges to the health-care system. Yet in this textbook they now provide a truly novel approach towards our understanding and perception of asthma and COPD...the combined approach set out in this book towards asthma and COPD is not so much the Dutch hypothesis revisited, rather it is a more than sensible approach to understanding the nature and the challenges of chronic respiratory diseases in general.Asthma and COPD provides a superb synthesis of the most up-to-date knowledge on obstructive airways diseases by leading experts in the field...The description of basic mechanisms is a particularly strong feature, but the reader also finds excellent chapters on the pathogenic mechanisms of asthma and COPD, a description of risk factors and triggers, and a clinically useful description of the clinical assessment of these frequent conditions...this textbook is a joy to browse through and to read; it is very well illustrated, and the tabulated material is truly educational...I hope that this book will become one of the major reference sources for information on asthma and COPD and that it might have the potential to serve a much wider medical community than respiratory textbooks usually do." --Klaus F. Rabe, The Lancet

• 1. Definitions, Epidemiology and Genetics of Asthma and COPD2. Epidemiology3. Natural History4. Genetics of Asthma and COPD5. Pulmonary Physiology6. Airway Pathology 7. Airway Remodeling8. Animal Models9. Mast Cells and Basophils10. Dentritic Cells11. Macrophages12. Eosinophils13. Lymphocytes14. Neutrophils15. Fibroblasts16. Epithelial Cells17. Mucus and Mucin-Secreting Cells18. Airway Smooth Muscle19. Tracheobronchial Circulation20. Pulmonary Vessels21. Adhesion Molecules 22. Extracellular Matrix23. Prostanoids24. Leukotrienes and Lipoxins25. Reactive Oxygen Species 26. Chemokines27. Cytokines28. Matrix Degrading Proteinases29. Growth Factors, 30. Nitric Oxide31. Transcription Factors32. Neural and Humoral Control33. Pathophysiology of Asthma34. Pathogenesis of COPD35. Allergens36. Occupational Agents37. Infections38. Exercise as a Stimulus39. Atmospheric Pollutants40. Drugs41. Diagnosis42. Non-invasive Assessment of Airway Inflammation43. Imaging44. Systemic Manifestations45. Cardiovascular Effects46. Allergen Avoidance47. Smoking Cessation48. â2-adrenoceptor Agonists49. Anticholinergic Bronchodilators50. Theophylline51. Corticosteroids52. Mediator Antagonists53. Antibiotics54. Long-term Oxygen Therapy55. Immunomodulators56. Pulmonary Vasodilators57. Ventilator Support58. Pulmonary Rehabilitation59. Surgery and Other Mechanical Interventions60. Other Therapies61. Future Therapies62. Health Economics63. Management of Chronic Asthma in Adults64. Asthma Exacerbations65. Childhood Asthma66. Treatment for Stable COPD67. Acute Exacerbations of COPD68. Education and Self-Management