This paper concerns the work being undertaken by a partnership formed in 2012 of Australian
and New Zealand Indigenous leaders, paediatric and adult clinicians, laboratory scientists, and educationalists,
under the umbrella of the Centre of Research Excellence (CRE) in Indigenous Children’s Lung Health, funded
by the National Health of Medical Research (Australia). This partnership seeks to improve the lung health of
children, particularly Indigenous children, through high-quality scientific research and care. The paper describes
their framework and key discussions from their second annual workshop held in 2014, which was attended by
CRE partners, external experts, and higher degree research scholars involved in projects linked with the CRE.
This conceptual framework shows the development of severe lung disease (chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease [COPD] and/or bronchiectasis) in adulthood and the possible factors that likely influence the progression
of disease. The workshop highlighted several questions concerning the airway microbiome and related host
responses in children with chronic suppurative lung disease/bronchiectasis. These are discussed in the paper.
