This event has ended. Recordings of the event are available to watch below.
Content Table
The recording includes the entire conference. Here are the beginning and ending times of each session on the recording, so you can easily find and watch each session separately.
Welcome and introduction 00:00:00-00:15:20
Session 1: Overview of bronchiectasis 00:15:20-01:05:20
Session 2: The future - latest research and improvements in treatment 01:05:20-02:22:50
Session 3: Living with bronchiectasis alongside other diseases 02:59:30-04:21:15
Session 4: Shared decision making and what works in bronchiectasis 04:29:43-05:58:28
There were also opportunities to ask questions to the speakers. Any questions that were not answered in our talks and presentations were responded to the chatbox throughout, as well as after the session. You can access these questions and answers using the link below. Thank you to our event speakers and session chairs for answering the many questions submitted on the day.
Download the full Bronchiectasis Patient Conference Q&A Resource 2024
On Saturday 23 March 2024 we held our free, online annual bronchiectasis patient conference.
There was a mix of live talks and videos from both bronchiectasis patients and medical experts on:
There were also opportunities to ask questions to the speakers.
Download the full schedule of the bronchiectasis patient conference
The bronchiectasis patient conference was held in English. We provided a live transcription service that allowed participants to generate captions in over 50 languages.
The following is a list of the speakers, session chairs and video contributors.
Professor James Chalmers is the British Lung Foundation Chair of Respiratory Research at the University of Dundee, UK, and a consultant respiratory physician.
He is an expert in lung infections and has been involved in a number of projects during the COVID-19 pandemic, including leading the ERS Guidelines Task Force for COVID-19 and being chief investigator for several trials of new COVID-19 treatments.
He works closely with ELF to involve patients in respiratory infection research through projects such as EMBARC, and is an advocate for involving patients in guidelines, clinical research, and clinical trials.
Chin Kong is celebrating his 70th birthday in March this year. He has had bronchiectasis for more than 20 years but only learnt about his condition in July 2022 when he had to be admitted to the hospital’s emergency ward for breathlessness. Chin Kong is managing his bronchiectasis condition by staying active with daily meditation, exercises and birding. He is also maintaining a daily regimen to clear his phlegm twice a day.
Associate Professor Chotirmall is an internationally recognised clinician-scientist with an established translational respiratory research group at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, NTU Singapore. To date, he has performed key work on endo-phenotyping pulmonary infection, including the use of next generation sequencing approaches, in the context of chronic inflammatory respiratory diseases that have led to publications in Nature Medicine, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the Lancet Respiratory Medicine, the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and Cell Host and Microbe. He has been appointed Provost’s Chair in Molecular Medicine at NTU Singapore since 2019 and currently serves as Vice Dean (Research) at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine and as Deputy Editor at the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (AJRCCM).
Barbara Crossley has been a member of the ELF Bronchiectasis Patient Advisory Group since 2017.
She has helped organise four Bronchiectasis Patient Conferences, collaborated with EMBARC researchers on ongoing projects, helped formulate patient surveys and patient-friendly information for the European Lung Foundation website, including a patient self-care guide.
She has lifelong bronchiectasis and is a writer who lives in the Peak District in Derbyshire, UK.
Bridget was diagnosed with bronchiectasis in 2014 and has lived with bronchiectasis symptoms for about 25 years. She is a member of the bronchiectasis patient support group in Edinburgh and joined the Bronchiectasis PAG as a result of James Chalmers coming to speak to the group.
In her professional life she worked for more than 30 years as a nurse in critical care, combining clinical work with research. This experience showed her how important patient and family input can be in improving care. Her own research included patients and healthy volunteers and she has participated as a patient in a number of research studies.
She values the opportunities and support the PAG offers for developing and providing information and education resources on bronchiectasis for patients and professionals and contributing to the research agenda.
Donna managed small businesses and provided support services for university students with disabilities. She is now retired, exercises regularly and enjoys travelling.
She was diagnosed with bronchiectasis more than 40 years ago, and hopes that all people with bronchiectasis find their way to leading a full life while navigating chronic disease.
Nancy is a retired teaching assistant who has lived with bronchiectasis for over 12 years and hopes to do more to support other patients with bronchiectasis as this is a condition that few are familiar with. She also hopes to contribute to respiratory medicine research.
80-year-old patient advocate with a portfolio of activities. My various health and social care interests (lung diseases, problematic polypharmacy, antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial stewardship) have merged into a dominant activity to promote the use of Personal Health Records (PHR) in the UK and internationally. I currently serve as PHR public partner with the UK Health Security Agency’s English Surveillance Programme for Antimicrobial Utilisation and Resistance and often present at conferences and webinars on my own PHR use to cope with aspergilloma and bronchiectasis, as well as other co-morbidities.
Eliza holds a PhD in Criminal Law and works as a barrister in Greece.
She has been a member of the ELF Bronchiectasis Patient Advisory Group since 2021 and has engaged with its activities and represented it in different projects and working groups over these years.
Dimitris Kontopidis is Chair of the European Lung Foundation. Dimitris is a cystic fibrosis patient and advocate and has been deeply involved in developing healthcare policy for chronic diseases. Dimitris chose not to have a lung transplant and by doing so brought ‘medicine for all’ to the forefront of Greek politics, helping to save the lives of many people with cystic fibrosis.
Dimitris has held a number of leadership roles within national and European patient organisations, including Cystic Fibrosis Europe, the Greek Patient Association and now ELF. His contributions to patient rights advocacy and improving healthcare services have been recognised through a wide range of awards. In addition to his advocacy activities, Dimitris is an architect and founded the HUMANE Network, a social enterprise that combines design with care, health, and innovation, and a non-profit NGO that focuses on empowering and advocating for people with disabilities.
Rose is principally a qualified paramedic who also provides visual minutes for events utilising her scientific background and creative flair. As a lecturer in higher education she has realised the impact of providing visual representations of complex scientific topics in a fun and novel way has helped paramedic learners and introducing these concepts to a wider audience.
I am an Advanced Respiratory Medicine Physiotherapist with a specialist interest in Bronchiectasis and research. I lead the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Physiotherapy Bronchiectasis service. I graduated from Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, UK in 2011. I completed rotations in Northumbria Foundation Trust before moving to a Senior and then Advanced Respiratory post in Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals, UK. I am passionate about research, completing my MSc in Public Health and Health Services Research in Newcastle University in 2022. I am a current National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) Clinical Doctoral Research Fellow. My PhD is looking into the use of Shared Decision Making to support patients with their Airway Clearance Techniques for Bronchiectasis. I hold the Long Term Conditions role for the Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Respiratory Care in the UK (www.acprc.org.uk).
Rachael is a theatre and fiction writer and literary translator who lives between the UK and Portugal. Rachael is a member of the ELF bronchiectasis patient advisory group.
Lucy is a lung specialist working in Sydney. She was the foundation chair of the Australasian Bronchiectasis Consortium and the Australian Bronchiectasis Registry and is now Chair of Lung Foundation Australia. She is passionate about empowering patients to have equity of access to great clinical care and great clinical trials, wherever they live.
Dr Fiona Mosgrove is a GP with special interest in respiratory medicine. Fiona has been a GP since 2012 and works in a large practice in Aberdeen city. She began to develop a respiratory special interest in 2018, studying for a postgraduate diploma and then a masters in respiratory medicine, with a project focused on the microbiology of bronchiectasis exacerbations. She sits on the primary care respiratory society education committee, the ACT on COPD working group for Scotland and is part of the international primary care group sentinel network question and answer group.
Dr Eva Polverino is a consultant in respiratory diseases at the University Hospital Vall d’Hebron in Barcelona. Eva is also Head of the Research Group in respiratory infections and a chair of EMBARC steering committee.
I was diagnosed with bronchiectasis of the middle right lobe when I was 8 years old having suffered from chronic cough and wheezing since I was five months old.
I am currently 16 studying for A levels in Biology, Chemistry and Maths and I am also doing my gold Duke Of Edinburgh’s award.
In autumn 2023 I joined the ELF council.
I play the trumpet and sing in a variety of bands, ensembles and choirs in school and with a music school on a Saturday. I also enjoy cycling and hiking in the local countryside.
Michal Shteinberg received her MD and a PhD in biochemistry from the Technion-Israel institute of technology. She trained in internal medicine and pulmonology, with a Fellowship in bronchiectasis and adult CF.
Prof. Shteinberg is Head of Bronchiectasis and Adult Cystic Fibrosis Unit, Carmel Medical Center, and the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, the B. Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Haifa, Israel.
She is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Faculty of medicine at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and a member of the executive committee of the Israeli Society for Tuberculosis and mycobacterial diseases.
Her main research interests are bronchiectasis and its overlap with other airway diseases, mainly rhinosinusitis, and connective tissue diseases, as well as adult CF.
Prof. Shteinberg is a member of EMBARC management and heading Patient Activities Work package.
This event was developed with and supported by EMBARC, a pan-European network and the ELF Bronchiectasis Patient Advisory Group.
This was the fourth instalment of our annual bronchiectasis patient conference. Find out more about the previous events:
ELF does not charge for its events and materials. We want to make sure they are available to anybody who wishes to join or use them. To ensure we can keep doing this we ask that those who can afford to pay to make a donation. We are grateful to everyone who supports us in this way and helps lung health patients to understand more about their condition and have their voices heard.
ELF is a patient-led organisation that works internationally to bring patients and the public together with healthcare professionals to improve lung health and advance diagnosis, treatment and care.
EMBARC is a European Respirtory Society (ERS) CLinical Research Collaboration (CRC) in the field of bronchiectasis. Clinicians from EMBARC have been involved in the planning of this event. ELF received funding from EMBARC to hold this event.
ERN-LUNG is the European Reference Network for rare respiratory diseases. It is a network of European patients and healthcare providers dedicated to ensuring and promoting excellence in care and research to the benefit of patients affected by rare respiratory diseases.
