Abstract This renewal for years 41-45 of the Program in “Multidisciplinary Training in Pulmonary Diseases” at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill supports six postdoctoral trainees with M.D., M.D./Ph.D. or Ph.D. degrees for research training in Respiratory Medicine, emphasizing a joint training program for Medicine and Pediatric trainees. The Program provides multidisciplinary training in basic, translation and clinical research within the pulmonary divisions of the Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics and our three Centers devoted to understanding lung health and disease. The breadth of training provided by the Program is expanded by faculty from 12 clinical (3) and basic science (9) departments in the Schools of Medicine and Public Health and the College of Arts and Sciences. M.D. trainees will enter a 3-5 year clinical and research training experience designed to provide them with skills required for a career in academic pulmonary medicine. Ph.D. trainees will typically enter in the second year of their post-doctoral fellowship, and they will be well integrated into the translational and clinical research components, as well as the basic science. Each trainee will have a scholarly oversight committee that includes trainers from varying disciplines who will facilitate their scientific growth. Each area of lung research offered by the Program is multidisciplinary in nature and emphasizes a knowledge of the basic, translational, clinical and impact implications for each trainee's question, even though a trainee's research focuses on one aspect. Areas of research include the genetic basis of airways diseases, particularly cystic fibrosis, primary ciliary dyskinesia, and idiopathic bronchiectasis, cell and molecular biology of airway epithelia in health and disease, inflammatory and innate immune responses during bacterial and viral infections, endothelial cell biology and vascular permeability in infection and ARDS, outcomes research and clinical trials in critical care, the control of airway inflammation, basic and translational proteomics of airways, the airway microbiome in health and in cystic fibrosis and COPD, airway function and leukocyte kinetics in COPD, comparative effectiveness research in COPD, the responses to injury by physical, chemical, and microbial environmental agents, and clinical and basic studies in asthma. Novel programs that exemplify the multi- disciplinary nature include the Virtual Lung Project, ARDS and Critical Care Research, and the COPD-Lung Cancer Working Group, each of which require cross-disciplinary interactions amongst a very wide range of expertise to accomplish their goals. Clinical studies will be integrated with basic observations using translational physiologic, biochemical, molecular and genetic technologies and Omics approaches and will provide training in state-of-the-art bioinformatics, database design, use and analyses, and statistical interpretation. Emphasis is on mechanisms underlying ...