PhD ceremony Ms. J. Smolonska: The many faces of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

PhD ceremony: Ms. J. Smolonska, 12.45 uur, Academiegebouw, Broerstraat 5, Groningen

Dissertation: The many faces of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Promotor(s): prof. H.M. Boezen, prof. C. Wijmenga

Faculty: Medical Sciences

This thesis is an investigation of several phenotypes of COPD: airway obstruction, emphysema, lung function decline. We were interested not only in these phenotypes, but also their shared genetic background. Airway obstruction and emphysema can occur together, asthma and COPD despite being separate diseases share many features, and therefore we searched for common genes underlying these phenotypes. GWA studies were the main tools used, but we also looked beyond GWA studies and used other tools, like analysis of epistasis. The pathways that emerge from our findings are worth investigating further, as not all of them were considered to be involved in COPD before, for example the cell adhesion pathway. Although the results did not reach genome-wide significance, they still can be valid and worth investigating further.