International Collaborative Airways Network

The ICAN was created to promote innovation and strengthen international collaborations on airways diseases, and the currently unmet need in the space beyond well-described T2 pathways and treatments.

International Collaborative Airways Network

The ICAN was created to promote innovation and strengthen international collaborations on airways diseases, and the currently unmet need in the space beyond well-described T2 pathways and treatments.

Key Highlights

About 30-50 abstracts and posters are presented at each event. We also invite to attend academic, industry, NIH, ERS, and agency representatives.

Innovative Research

ICAN is interested in promoting bioinformatics and other approaches to data analysis, through always welcomes any novel research approach.

Diverse Translations

ICAN strives to enhance and promote research work that can be translated to be applied internationally.

International Collaboration

ICAN aims to enhance this approaches with international collaborative efforts that bring together data generated by various research groups to arrive at novel and more generalizable findings.

ICAN Events

2025 (May 2025, San Francisco, USA)

GAAPP will co-host the International Collaborative Airways Network (ICAN 3) meeting on May 15-16, 2025, in San Francisco, CA.

This two-day event highlights the work of early investigators in chronic airways diseases who are seeking novel approaches to topics like environment, genetics, nonT2 pathways, etc. 

We will soon update our website with ICAN3 announcement and open abstract submission site in early January so stay tuned at this page.

2023 (September 2023, Milan, Italy)

About ICAN

The ICAN (International Collaborative Asthma Network) was created to promote innovation and strengthen international collaborations on asthma in general, with a focus on severe asthma, and the currently unmet need in the space beyond well-described T2 pathways and treatments.

We invite early career investigators to submit abstracts on severe and exacerbation-prone asthma, especially when unresponsive to current therapies. The ICAN is particularly interested in promoting bioinformatics and other approaches to data analysis that can be enhanced with international collaborative efforts that bring together data generated by various research groups to arrive at novel and more generalizable findings.

About 30-50 abstracts and posters are presented in each event with a focus on:

  • Innovation
  • Translation
  • Need for international collaboration

We also invite to attend academic, industry, NIH, ERS, and agency representatives

Next ICAN meeting:

15 May 2025, in the ATS (American Thoracic Congress) 2025 in San Francisco, USA.

Abstract submission guidelines will be announced in early 2025 in this page

Past ICAN events (this is an accordion-like section):

  • 2022 (May 2022, San Francisco, USA)
    • Download the publication
    • Add summary report
  • 2023 (September 2023, Milan, Italy)
    • Add summary report
    • Photos and video carrousels
    • Update on the current publication of the 2023 manuscript: 3 July 2024, Abstract Submitted to Annals of Allergy June 2024
    • Download the abstract summary

Organizing Committee:

Praveen Akuthota, Fan Chung, Ratko Djukanovic, Hannah Durrington, Stephen Fowler, Benjamin Gaston, Nizar Jarjour, Eneida Mendonça, Salman Siddiqui, Samantha Walker, Tonya Winders, Joe Zein.

Inclusivity:

ICAN is committed to providing a safe, collegial environment that is inclusive and free from any form of discrimination. Participants are expected to be collaborative, considerate of other participants, and respectful of their viewpoints.

Have questions? Please visit contact GAAPP or visit this link for more information.

2022 (May 2022, San Francisco, USA)
This focus of this meeting was to promote innovation and to strengthen international collaborations on asthma in general and severe asthma in particular.  There is a heightened need in the space beyond the T2 asthma phenotype. This meeting was a junior investigators research forum and focused on international collaboration in the following 5 areas:  1) Establishing an international entity to foster future meetings, data sharing, and innovative asthma research 2) Validating innovative disease mechanisms hypotheses, 3) Developing new technologies and therapies, 4) Organizing pilot studies of personalized severe asthma treatments, and 5) Engaging young investigators. Abstracts submissions were solicited and were scored and selected based on the following criteria:
  1. Novelty of the idea, preferably independent of targets and pathways currently funded by major industrial partners in drug development and extending beyond T2 mechanisms (20 points).
  2. Proposed or already applied use of collaborative data analysis across different international asthma networks (20 points).
  3. “Shovel-ready” programming approach to integrated application of big data networks for use in understanding asthma (10 points).
  4. Strength of the preliminary data (note that the ICAN abstract can expand upon, but not duplicate, data being presented at the 2022 ATS) (15 points).
  5. IP and potential translational relevance to personalized diagnosis or treatment (20 points).
  6. Potential for creating a reduction in the burden of asthma (15 points).
  7. Additionally, we will evaluate whether the abstract is related to one of the priorities in Table 1 of the asthma research prioritization exercise (please name which one)
Thirty-six abstracts were selected for presentation on their innovative ideas in the beyond T2 asthma space which are supported by preliminary data or analysis and have potential for using international collaborative platforms. Abstracts and attendees began the event in categorized groups according to project topic, but throughout the event, were pushed to ‘cross-pollinate’ across groups so as to explore new, innovative collaborations. The ICAN did not permit the presenters to present the same abstracts as those submitted to ATS, but rather abstracts which are ‘next steps’ or refer to ATS abstracts. The meeting was a great success, providing time and space for investigators from around the globe to present their work and then discuss their data and next steps for their projects. The meeting was completed with guest speakers in the fields of legal processes, entrepreneurship and big data and informatics. Allergy and Asthma Network is supporting the preparation of a manuscript about this meeting. This meeting was made possible by an NHLBI R13 award and the support and efforts of Allergy and Asthma Network, as well as the support of AstraZeneca and Zephrx. The ICAN Organizing Committee is working on plans for the second ICAN meeting anticipated to take place in 2023.

Organizing Committee

Praveen Akuthota

Fan Chung

Ratko Djukanovic

Hannah Durrington

Stephen Fowler

Benjamin Gaston

Nizar Jarjour

Eneida Mendonça

Salman Siddiqui

Samantha Walker

Tonya Winders

Joe Zein

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Photos of ICAN 2023

Inclusivity at ICAN

ICAN is committed to providing a safe, collegial environment that is inclusive and free from any form of discrimination. Participants are expected to be collaborative, considerate of other participants, and respectful of their viewpoints.