Research Update - Jan 2020
Research Update
The first recruitment event for BPF-GILD took place in January 2019 where 178 fanciers gave up their time (and a small volume of blood) to participate. With the new joiners from Lanark, this brings the study population to 240, almost halfway towards our goal of 500 by January 2024.
The last 12 months have seen the study team busy processing the samples and paperwork from Blackpool 2019 and also learning from the 2019 experience to smooth the flow of participants through the process at subsequent events. With Blackpool being the social highlight of the year for many of the fanciers, we are keen to ensure that we are as efficient as we can be and to take up as little time of their valuable time as possible. As BPF-GILD is a much larger and more involved study than previous years, it was inevitable that there would be some teething problems and delays but please be assured that we are working hard to address these and learning from each experience. Given the large turnout we have increased the research team this year, with the expectation that this will remove the bottle necks that led to delays last year.
You will be aware that there was a slight delay in getting the pigeon test results out to participants after Blackpool last year. We expect to return results much more quickly this year.
All those who joined the study at Blackpool 2019 should by now have received a follow-up letter asking if you have experienced any health changes since January. Thank you to everyone who has already returned the form and if you didn’t receive your letter, do let us know as soon as possible (contact details below) or let us know at Blackpool.
As BPF-GILD is still in its growth stages, where we are collecting and cleaning the data, it is too early to report any of the major research findings. However, we were pleased to be able to present some of our early data from the lung function tests at a large national meeting of respiratory research clinicians and researchers at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster, London in December. The data were presented in a short talk to a packed-out audience by Dr Will Henderson, one of the doctors whom many of you will recognise from the questionnaire stations at Blackpool and Lanark. There was considerable interest in the study from the wider respiratory research community reflecting our own view that BPF-GILD will be an extremely valuable resource for ground-breaking studies of pigeon lung and other related respiratory diseases.
One again, we thank you for your support and we encourage you to visit us at Blackpool 2020.
Professor Louise V. Wain PhD FHEA
GSK/British Lung Foundation Chair in Respiratory Research
Genetic Epidemiology Group
University of Leicester