The BTS took over the entire Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London again this year to host its Silver Jubilee year Winter Meeting. This, the biggest and most comprehensive meeting so far, was also the first to accommodate an additional day for allied health professionals, held in conjunction with the Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Respiratory Care (ACPRC).

PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS AND RECEPTION

In his Presidential address, “Beyond the prescription”, Professor Martyn Partridge focused on the way health care delivery might change in the future with more consultations being delivered in community-based clinics at times which would be more convenient to our patients.

The BTS medal was jointly presented to Professor Peter Barnes and Dr Alistair Brewis for their outstanding contributions to respiratory medicine and, at the lively reception, Professor Sue Hill, Chief Scientific Officer at the Department of Health, presented the BTS Silver Jubilee Awards. These covered seven categories celebrating innovation and excellence in respiratory medicine care and service delivery and were a showcase of achievement through teamwork. Also at the reception, the BTS Young Investigator Prize was awarded to Dr David Simcock for his work on airway neovascularisation by airway smooth muscle in asthma.1 The BALR prize went to Dr Yang for his studies on altered gene regulation in familial pulmonary hypertension2 and the BLF prize winner was Dr Kewin for his work on a novel cytokine found to induce eosinophilic airway inflammation.3 Other abstracts submitted for prizes covered a wide range of topics such as statin treatment in hypoxic pulmonary hypertension,4 the search for molecules to block polymerisation of Z α₁-antitrypsin5 and the role of vascular endothelial growth factor on the cell cycle of alveolar cells.6

CHRONIC OBSTRUCTIVE PULMONARY DISEASE (COPD)

In recognition of the increasing interest and research in COPD, a large proportion of the programme was …