2001 Annual Report and Request for Support
By Richard Casaburi, Ph.D., M.D.
President of PERF

Pulmonary Education and Research Foundation

November 22, 2001

   This is a very different year. Many of our thoughts have been occupied with the tragedies of September 11^th. All of our lives have been impacted by these events; it is hard to see when things will get back to "normal". Americans have responded, as they always do, with a generous hand to our neighbors in need. We at PERF recognize that many of you have made substantial donations to the relief effort for the New York disaster and agree that these donations have a high priority. We are tempering our call for donations to PERF this year, realizing that many of you made generous contributions to PERF earlier this year and that you may well have exhausted your "donations budget" for the year.

   Having said this, we have much to report. PERF has many accomplishments to be proud of this year. This is the year that the Rehabilitation Clinical Trials Center kicked into high gear. A number of projects have been completed and a larger number are underway, all investigating strategies to improve the lives of people suffering from chronic diseases, especially COPD. Our efforts have been enhanced by having the help of Mary Burns, who has played an active role in planning and carrying out a number of our research studies.

• We finished our study of testosterone and strength training in men with COPD. Our thanks to the 50 men who participated in this three year study. We found that both testosterone and strength training increased muscle size and strength. We suspect that these findings will quickly change the practice of pulmonary rehabilitation. Even better, we received a large grant to study testosterone administration (in low doses) to women with COPD. We will be starting these studies shortly and hope to have many enthusiastic participants in this study.
  
• Oxygen is turning out to be an even more useful therapy than we had believed. We published two papers this year showing that even people with COPD who do not "qualify" for oxygen therapy greatly increase their ability to exercise when they receive oxygen. Our master of the laboratory, Dr. Janos Porszasz, helped to figure out why oxygen is so helpful. Our Swedish Nightingale, Dr. Margareta Emtner, finished her year as Fullbright Scholar in our laboratory and returned home to Uppsala. Before she left, she concluded a study involving 30 people with COPD, studying the effect of breathing oxygen during an exercise program. We hope to have the results of this study soon.
  
• New kinds of bronchodilators are being developed for COPD and we have been taking part in studies of three new drugs. I have been involved in the design of several of these studies; some of these drugs promise to be substantially better than the ones we use today.
  
• We have new scientists who have come to work with us. Two physicians from Japan and a student from Brazil are currently working with us. This summer we said goodbye to Dr. Somfay, who went back to Szeged, Hungary and is having great success in introducing pulmonary rehabilitation to Hungary. I am especially proud of Dr. Bahman Chavoshan, who received a Research Training Fellowship from the American Lung Association to study the abnormalities in muscle of patients with COPD.
  
• We have started to branch out, realizing that the techniques we have developed to help people with COPD will be useful in treating people with other medical problems. Studies in patients on kidney dialysis, sickle cell anemia and prostate cancer are either underway or about to start and there is a study involving children born with heart abnormalities that has just been funded.

   These studies could not have been accomplished without having a large number of volunteer participants in our research. For those of you who have not had the "joy" of being involved in a research project, give us a call at (310) 222-8276. We always have projects in the works and we are pleased to provide compensation for participants.

   The biggest news of the year, though, and the biggest accomplishment of PERF ever, was the formal establishment of the Alvin Grancell-Mary Burns Chair in the Rehabilitative Sciences. As you will remember, we have been working for several years to accumulate the funds necessary to establish an Endowed Research Chair at the Harbor-UCLA Research and Education Institute which will, in perpetuity, help fund a scientist to pursue rehabilitation research. I am proud to be the first occupant of this Chair. We have Alvin Grancell to thank for initiating this project (and being the major donor). Tom Petty’s "Long Beach 500" challenge (see below) yielded a substantial amount of additional funding this year. A mid-year celebration marked the formal launch of the Chair, the first at Harbor-UCLA Research and Education Institute. Though additional funding will be required to fully fund this Chair (allowing the occupant to do full-time rehabilitation research), our sincere thanks to those of you who have contributed to date.

   I hope you were able to attend this year’s Respiratory Rally. Held at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, it was the biggest (and, I think, best) ever. We were honored to have Dr. Tom Petty serve as master of ceremonies. This year’s theme was "Rally for Research" and we had over three hundred enthusiastic participants from all over Southern California who were informed and entertained by a top-flight group of speakers.

   Each year, the American Lung Association of California awards the "California Medal" to the individual who has had the year’s most meritorious contribution to the cause, prevention or treatment of lung disease. This year an exception was made and two individuals were honored. It pleases me to tell you that Mary Burns and I attended the annual Lung Association meeting at Lake Tahoe in October to accept this award. We take this award as recognition of the importance of our work to improve the quality of life of those who suffer from lung disease.

   So, my friends, it has been a busy year, with an even busier year in the wings. We have much to be thankful for and hope that you do too. As I said at the beginning of this letter, we would welcome donations to PERF. As always, they will be used efficiently to further the fight against lung disease. We especially would welcome contributions, from those of you who are able, directed at the Chair in the Rehabilitative Sciences, as we continue our efforts to reach Alvin Grancell’s goal of $5 million to fully fund this Chair!

Very best wishes for a happy holiday season and for a healthy and productive 2002.

Sincerely,
Richard Casaburi, Ph.D.,M.D.
President, Pulmonary Education and Research Foundation
Alvin Grancell-Mary Burns Chair in the Rehabilitative Sciences
Medical Director, Rehabilitation Clinical Trials Center