Credits Available: 3.50 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit

Description: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the third leading cause of death worldwide, is a heterogeneous lung condition characterized by chronic respiratory symptoms caused by persistent airflow limitation due to airway and alveolar abnormalities. Initial COPD management relies on bronchodilators with the addition of inhaled corticosteroids for those at high risk for exacerbations. However, up to half of patients on triple therapy still experience exacerbations, highlighting a need for new therapies. Biologic therapy targeting type 2 inflammation, which is common in COPD and associated with exacerbation risk, has recently been approved for clinical use as add-on maintenance treatment of adult patients with inadequately controlled COPD and an eosinophilic phenotype. This educational program is designed to get pulmonology experts up to date on these rapid treatment advances for COPD as well as to bolster standard-of-care fundamentals.

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This program is intended for:
Target Professions: DO, MD, Nurse Practitioner, Physician Associate/Assistant
Target Specialties: Pulmonary/Respiratory Physician

Michael Wechsler

Michael Wechsler, MD
Professor of Medicine

Michael E. Wechsler is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at NJH in Denver, Director of the National Jewish Health (NJH)/Cohen Family Asthma Institute and Associate Vice President for Innovation and Industry Relations at NJH. In addition to clinical work in pulmonary & critical care medicine, Professor Wechsler’s research focuses on clinical and translational asthma with emphasis on clinical trials in asthma, novel asthma therapies, bronchial thermoplasty, asthma pharmacogenomics, and management of eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (i.e. Churg-Strauss Syndrome, CSS). He has led studies focusing on novel biologic agents for asthma and related diseases, including benralizumab, dupilumab, mepolizumab, reslizumab, and tezepelumab. He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed manuscripts relating to asthma, EGPA and eosinophilic lung diseases. He was a member of the Steering Committee and site Principal Investigator of the NIH-sponsored Asthma Clinical Research Network (ACRN, now called AsthmaNet), a multicentre asthma clinical trials consortium, and currently serves as the PI of the Denver site of the Precision Intervention in Severe/Exacerbating Asthma (PRECISE) network. A member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians, he has participated in many different task forces related to the study of eosinophilic lung diseases that were sponsored by the NIH, the FDA, the European Respiratory Society and the International Eosinophil Society. He is currently Associate Editor of the journal Chest and has served as Associate Editor of the journal Allergy and on the editorial board of the European Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Dr. Wechsler received AB and MMSc degrees from Harvard University in Boston and an MD degree from McGill University in Montreal. He completed medical training at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, and as part of the Harvard Combined Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship Training Program.