Incidences of inflammatory airway diseases are on the rise across the world. Existing therapeutic options are ineffective, unsafe, and expensive, and severe cases are nonresponsive to conventional therapy. Therefore, it is imperative that research be undertaken to discover new treatment options. Obstructive Airway Diseases: Role of Lipid Mediators discusses clinically successful and potential lipid targets that can make a difference in treating some of the most intractable disease states.

Topics discussed include:

• Obstructive airway diseases, etiology, pathophysiology, and existing therapeutic options
• What constitutes a lipid and how it is broken down to generate biologically active mediators
• The role of enzymes in the process of lipid mediator synthesis
• The biology of arachidonic acid, platelet-activating factor, and lysophosphatidic acid and the role they play in airway inflammation
• Products of arachidonic acid metabolism such as leukotrienes, prostaglandins, epieicosatrienoic acid, and oxoeicosatetraenoic acid
• Proresolution lipid mediators in inflammatory airway disease conditions
• The role of sphingosine and ceramide in inflammatory airway disease
• Protein kinases activated by lipid mediators and those that trigger the generation of lipid messengers

The combined input of a panel of international authorities on lipid mediators makes this volume a valuable resource for all those involved in researching, teaching, and studying airway inflammation as well as those involved in drug discovery research.

Punit Srivastava maintains a blog with additional information about the book and his work.