Update in Environmental and Occupational Medicine 2010

Large genome-wide association studies in patients with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and other major lung diseases have provided insight into the genetic determinants of disease (1, 2).However, the relatively small risk attributable to genetic variation observed in those studies has prompted investigators to renew their focus on the role of environmental exposures in the development of lung disease.Indeed, understanding how environmental exposures alter gene expression was identified as a major goal in a National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute workshop report focused on understanding the link between genes and their function (3).The purpose of this update is to highlight the advances in environmental and occupational medicine published in the Journal over the past year in the broader context of the exciting ongoing work in this area.