CAG Greater Copenhagen Research Centre for Systemic Low-Grade Inflammation
(LOGINFLAM)

The CAG LOGINFLAM aims to improve treatment for patients with diseases associated with low-grade inflammation (LGI). The CAG vision is to establish an internationally recognised centre of LGI research with a track record of excellent scientific results, education and innovation that has improved understanding of LGI-associated pathologies and contributed to a reduction of their individual and societal burden.

LGI is implicated in most noncommunicable diseases, e.g. type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, periodontitis, neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. These diseases account for massive direct and indirect health costs; thus, LGI represents a substantial societal burden.

Also, traditional chronic inflammatory diseases, e.g. periodontitis, rheumatoid arthritis, primary Sjögren’s syndrome and systemic lupus erythematosus, as well as adverse effects of therapeutic interventions, e.g. transfusions or surgery, are linked with LGI. These diseases frequently share inflammatory pathways and coexist in individual patients, suggesting that treatment of one LGI-dependent disease may favourably affect another comorbidity.

While LGI research has attracted interest, clinical implementation of results has been limited. This is partly due to a predominant interest in conventional ‘disease-specific’ mechanisms and interventions, e.g. anti-diabetic or lipid-lowering drugs, and a belief that inflammatory mechanisms often are epiphenomena and not primary pathogenic drivers of disease. However, there is increasing realisation that even after optimal conventional treatment, persistent LGI represents a residual ‘inflammatory’ risk, and that inflammation is a maker and not merely a marker of disease.

The CAG aims to provide novel and clinically relevant data on the importance of LGI in human disease by adopting a translational approach based on a formalised collaboration between investigators from basic science, clinical specialties and epidemiology. By joining the forces of researches of proven excellence, the CAG creates synergies that promote high-quality LGI research, teaching, innovation and clinical implementation.