Activating alternative chloride channels to treat CF: Friends or Foes?: Report on the Meeting of the Basic Science Working Group in Dubrovnik, Croatia

Abstract

The European Cystic Fibrosis Society (ECFS) Basic Science Working Group (BSWG) organized a session on the topic “Activating Alternative Chloride Channels to Treat CF: Friends or Foes?”, within the 16th ECFS Basic Science Conference gathering ∼200 researchers from CF Basic Science. The session was organized into two round tables, each chaired by Margarida Amaral (BioISI, University of Lisboa, Portugal) and Jeffrey Beekman (University Medical Centre Utrecht, Netherlands) as Chair and Vice-Chair of the BSWG, respectively. The purpose of this session was to bring attention of participants of the ECFS Basic Science Conference to alternative chloride channels as important therapeutic targets for CF which may treat all individuals with CF, independently of their CFTR genotype. The session had various speakers who had presented abstracts to the conference on this topic and discussants with different views. Here we try to convey the presentations as well as ideas that emerged during the discussion.