ATS Breathe Easy

 On this episode of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast, meet the newly-elected ATS President, Raed Dweik, MD, MBA, ATSF. Host Amy Attaway, MD, MS, talks with Dr. Dweik on his vision for the ATS, and what he is most excited for in the fields of respiratory health, critical care, and how the ATS is braced to help members face ongoing challenges. Did you miss the ATS 2025 International Conference? Or were you unable to attend some key sessions? Go to conference.thoracic.org/program/conference-highlights/ to purchase your ATS Conference Highlight Package. Be sure to check out the Out of the Blue podcast from the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, which takes you out of the pages of the Blue Journal and into the minds of the most brilliant researchers in the fields of respiratory, critical care, and sleep medicine. Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts! 

On this edition of the ATS Breathe Easy: The Latest, host Patti Tripathi and Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research President and CEO Mary McGowan discuss sarcoidosis research and the Champions for Change movement to encourage companies to allow employees to use paid time off to enroll in clinical trials. To learn more, go to ignorenomore.org. Did you miss the ATS 2025 International Conference? Or were you unable to attend some key sessions? Go to conference.thoracic.org/program/conference-highlights/ to purchase your ATS Conference Highlight Package. Be sure to check out the Out of the Blue podcast from the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, which takes you out of the pages of the Blue Journal and into the minds of the most brilliant researchers in the fields of respiratory, critical care, and sleep medicine. Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts! 

 In our continuing series on What You May Have Missed at ATS 2025, Sunil Kapoor, MD, Medical College of Georgia, and host Erika Moseson, MD, MA, of the Air Health Our Heath podcast, discuss their takeaways from the "Strategies to Reduce Pulmonary and Critical Care Practice Emissions" networking event at ATS 2025. This includes how practices can reduce their carbon footprint and how better climate change policies can help patient outcomes. Did you miss the ATS 2025 International Conference? Or were you unable to attend some key sessions? Go to conference.thoracic.org/program/conference-highlights/ to purchase your ATS Conference Highlight Package.Be sure to check out the Out of the Blue podcast from the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, which takes you out of the pages of the Blue Journal and into the minds of the most brilliant researchers in the fields of respiratory, critical care, and sleep medicine. Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts! 

 This week, in our series on What You May Have Missed at ATS 2025, host Eddie Qian, MD, of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, discusses post intensive care syndrome with Justin Banerdt, MD, MPH, Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Banerdt presented his research on the subject, “Characterizing Critical Illness Recovery Trajectories: Exploring Risk Factors for Post Intensive Care Syndrome”, at ATS 2025 this past May. Did you miss the ATS 2025 International Conference? Or were you unable to attend some key sessions? Go to conference.thoracic.org/program/conference-highlights/ to purchase your ATS Conference Highlight Package. Be sure to check out the Out of the Blue podcast from the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, which takes you out of the pages of the Blue Journal and into the minds of the most brilliant researchers in the fields of respiratory, critical care, and sleep medicine. Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts! 

Continuing our series on What You May Have Missed at ATS 2025, host Amy Attaway, MD, MS, of Cleveland Clinic, dives into key topics from the Clinical Year in Review with Sara Auld, MD, MSc, Emory University. Did you miss the ATS 2025 International Conference? Or were you unable to attend some key sessions? Go to conference.thoracic.org/program/conference-highlights/ to purchase your ATS Conference Highlight Package. 

This latest episode in the series "What You May Have Missed at ATS 2025," features Donna Appell, RN, immediate-past-chair of  the Public Advisory Roundtable (PAR), a unique feature of the American Thoracic Society. Helping to integrate the patient perspective in research and clinical care, PAR is comprised of nearly 15 respiratory-related patient organizations. Ms. Appell sat down with host Patti Tripathi to discuss PAR events at ATS 2025 as well as the work of the Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome Network, Inc, of which Ms. Appell is founder and executive director.6:40 How do groups like the Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome Network work with the ATS on grand funding?16:35 Why is it important that PAR have a presence at the International Conference?

This week's episode dives into COPD treatment. When considering inhaler devices, what is the best strategy for COPD patients? Host Amy Attaway, MD, MS, associate director of the COPD Center at  Cleveland Clinic welcomes Anthony Anzueto, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center and chief of the pulmonary section for the South Texas Veterans Healthcare System in San Antonio.This episode is supported by Viatris and Theravance BioPharma.

This episode begins our series on "What you may have missed at ATS 2025."We produce over 450 million tons of plastics each year, the vast majority of which has accumulated in the environment. Increasing evidence suggests that microplastics can accumulate in a number of different organs such as the brain, but what of the lungs? In this episode, Adam Soloff, PhD (self-described "Lorax of the Thorax"), associate professor, UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, walks us through his research to find out what these ever-present microplastics do to the lungs and the pulmonary immune system in particular. Spoiler alert: once inhaled, microplastics pass through the lung seeding many tissues of the body including the heart, brain, gut, liver, and spleen. "We found it everywhere we looked," said Dr. Soloff whose team's work begins to shed light on how microplastics damage lung immunity and may predispose us to lung disease in the future.4:16 What is a microplastic?6:19 Where is the most established evidence of how microplastics affects our health?

Erika Moseson, MD, of the Air Health Our Heath podcast hosts this week's episode with guest Daniel Croft, MPH, ATSF. Dr. Croft is associate professorin the Department of Environmental Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center. On this episode we share insights from the Climate Change and Respiratory Health: Opportunities to Contribute to Environmental Justice: An Official American Thoracic Society Workshop Report - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40311081/For additional discussion on environmental health, please also view our recent Breathe Easy episode 12 “EPA Rollbacks Spell Grave Impacts on Public Health” for an up-to-date discussion of current national changes related to health care, environmental health and environmental justice:  And for ATS members, please review the Washington Letter for up to date actions ATS is taking to protect respiratory health:  https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__site.thoracic.org_about-2Dus_news_washington-2Dletter&d=DwMFAg&c=shNJtf5dKgNcPZ6Yh64b-ALLUrcfR-4CCQkZVKC8w3o&r=cBcAqdnwqc2JZQ0oH6i362XLRsQ-_Tz-M1Wc9UELJNs&m=MdI_1W73157uyTefcBrkHA9wu2ITlxReWhEVndIGRsDlh5tkbX4XmkSOaeWSnB1a&s=yhFeE9pojesBPCkULoIjDdlcHL_vqKUR6d_rwIEVw0Y&e=

Host Patti Tripathi talks to Alpha-1 patient advocate Len Geiger ahead of his ATS 2025 International Conference plenary presentation. He was diagnosed at age 35 with a rare lung disease. He almost lost it all, but Len didn't lose his fight. "Everybody can do something more than they're doing right now," he says.