This month marks 2 years of the Translational Innovation Hub Network for Cystic Fibrosis Lung Health and Infection, the CF Lung Health Network for short. The Network is made up of 4 Innovation Hubs based in Cambridge, Liverpool, London and Manchester. 

The network was established back in 2024, jointly funded by LifeArc and Cystic Fibrosis Trust, with an ambitious goal: to bring together people, expertise and technologies needed to tackle some of the biggest challenges in cystic fibrosis (CF) lung health. 

Over the past 2 years, the network has brought together more than 150 researchers and collaborators from around 30 organisations, spanning disciplines from respiratory medicine and microbiology to data science, genomics and engineering.  

Dr Shyreen Hassibi, a postdoctoral researcher working within the CF Lung Health Network said: “The CF Lung Health Network is valuable because it brings together clinicians and scientists from diverse research backgrounds and approaches, all working toward the shared goal of improving outcomes for people with CF.”

The network’s studies are running at 18 CF centres in the UK, with over 200 people screened and more than 160 currently taking part in research.  

Researchers from across the network are exploring new ways to understand and address CF lung infections, from AI-powered analysis to understand bacterial responses to antibiotics and discovery of phages to use in future therapies, to environmental monitoring to identify triggers for flare-ups of infection.  

Recent milestones include more than 300,000 downloads of the predictive algorithm tool Bacformer to analyse bacterial genomes, and more than 820 samples returned to clinic from people with CF monitoring their lung health at home. 

These are just some of the numbers that show how far the network has come, but they only tell part of the story. Behind each collaboration, study and discovery is a shared commitment to improving outcomes for people with CF. 

As the CF Lung Health Network enters its third year, the focus remains on bringing together expertise, technology and patient participation to accelerate progress in CF lung health research.