King’s Centre for Lung Health

The Critical Need: Lung Health in the 21st Century

With 16 billion human lungs worldwide, chronic respiratory diseases pose a profound and escalating global crisis. This overwhelming burden demands urgent, innovative solutions.

• A Global Challenge: Chronic respiratory diseases are the 3rd leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for four million premature deaths each year. Over 450 million people currently suffer from a chronic respiratory disease.
• The Economic Cost: In the UK, lung disease affects 1 in 5 people. The annual cost of care per patient with COPD is estimated at £2,000-3,000, and lung cancer deaths are projected to rise to over 2 million by 2050.
• Environmental Impact: Exposures and lung insults like air pollutants differ between regions worldwide. 

Image modified from Visual Capitalist, Visualized: The World’s Population at 8 Billion, 27 Sep 2022, by Nick Routley, Avery Koop and Christina Kostandi.

Global Leadership

As world leaders in respiratory medicine, we transform the treatment landscape for COPD, Asthma, ILD, Cough, and Sleep and Ventilation disorders.

Precision Science

By integrating advanced imaging and spatial transcriptomics, we discover novel therapeutic targets to treat lung disease with surgical precision.

Bedside to Bench

Our unique bedside-to-bench model ensures that laboratory discoveries are rapidly translated into life-saving patient care.

Inclusive Research

We lead the way in understanding how sex differences impact lung disease, ensuring equitable and effective treatment for all patients.

Stopping Flare-ups

We investigate the immune system’s response to infections to develop new medicines that stop sudden, life-threatening flare-ups (exacerbations).

Life-Saving Devices

We study and develop next-generation medical devices to provide critical support for patients facing ventilatory failure.

Patient Partnerships

We work side-by-side with patients and carers to ensure our science delivers the real-world outcomes that matter most to their lives.

Nurturing Future Experts

We train and mentor the next generation of respiratory scientists and clinical leaders to ensure a continuous pipeline of world-class medical innovation.