World No Tobacco Day 2020.

On 31st May every year since 1988, the World Health Organization (WHO), together with its global partners, has observed World No Tobacco Day (WNTD). WNTD began when the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the WHO, designated 7th April 1988—the 40th anniversary of the WHO—as a “world no smoking day,” where smokers were urged to abstain from using tobacco products for 24 h, the hope being that this action would provide assistance to those trying to end their smoking habit. Subsequently, in 1988, the World Health Assembly passed Resolution WHA42.19 calling for the observance of WNTD on 31st May every year (72). Over the years, ashtrays containing a fresh flower have now become a common symbol of WNTD (Fig. 1), which is celebrated throughout all WHO member states. The WHO selects a particular theme that is associated with the observance of WNTD each year: In 2019, the theme of WNTD was “Tobacco and lung health,” and this year, the 2020 theme is “Protecting youth from industry manipulation and preventing them from tobacco and nicotine use. ” To support the observance of WNTD, three Editorials may be found in the May issue of the American Journal of Physiology–Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, to coincide with WNTD on 31st May 2020. The first of these Editorials (70) was penned by the staff of the Department of Health Promotion and the Department of Non-Communicable Diseases at the WHO, which founded and currently hosts WNTD. In their Editorial, Drs. St Claire, Gouda, Schotte, Fayokun, Fu, Varghese, and Prasad highlight the current health burden of tobacco and nicotine addiction, together with the new challenges presented by smokeless tobacco products, as well as novel, emerging nicotine, non-nicotine, and tobacco products. Areas where more research is needed are also highlighted. In the second Editorial (74), Drs. Vestbo and Pisinger, who serve as Chair of the European Respiratory Society Advocacy Council and Chair of the European Respiratory Society’s Tobacco Control Committee, respectively, explain why the objectives of WNTD should be of interest to the readership of the American Journal of Physiology–Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology. They go on to provide a thoughtful treatise on the strong need for further research into the physiological effects of smoking and electronic (e)-cigarette use (also called vaping). Third, this Editorial—the final Editorial in the series of three—by Drs. Nardiello and Morty, who serve as Social Media Curator and Editor in Chief, respectively, of the American Journal of Physiology–Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, highlights how our Journal has risen to the challenge and contributed important basic and translational research, as well as thoughtful discussion, to address the social, public health, and medical challenge presented by combustible cigarette and e-cigarette use, together with that of other heated tobacco products. In response to the need for further research exploring the impact of smoking, nicotine, and vaping on the development and physiological function of the lung and extrapulmonary organs, a Call for Papers was issued by our Journal in 2016: “Electronic Cigarettes: Not All Good News? ”. The Call was intentionally provocative, and challenged the suggestion that e-cigarettes were less harmful than conventional tobacco cigarettes. At that time, growing concerns about the impact of e-cigarettes on cardiac health (40), the risk that e-cigarettes might cause lung disease (66, 69), and the trend of increasing use of e-cigarettes (12, 27, 50, 51) revealed a pressing need for more data on the physiological effects of e-cigarettes (21). Thus, the Call for Papers was tailored to specifically focus on e-cigarettes, but also spanned then-topical related areas of smoking, including smoking-driven emphysema (54), thirdhand smoke (residual nicotine and other compounds left on surfaces by tobacco smoke) (63), the role of nicotine on lung physiology, including fetal and postnatal health and development (62), and nicotine addiction therapy (59). In response to this Call for Papers, research articles contributed by our authors have appreciably added to a rapidly growing body of data that identifies pathogenic mediators of cigarette-, nicotineand vaping-induced lung damage. Other reports have explored pharmacological interventions that attenuate the deleterious effects of exposure to cigarette smoke, nicotine and e-cigarette vapors on the structure and function of the lung, and have thus identified potential novel approaches for the management of cigarette-, nicotineand vaping-induced lung disease. Starting with combustible cigarettes, the effects of cigarette smoke on the lung were documented to be mediated, in part, by the liver X receptor (36); furthermore, cigarette smoke increased the expression of cathepsin S in the lung (5). As a proteolytic enzyme “let loose” in the smoke-exposed lung, cathepsin S is well placed to degrade parenchymal structures resulting in emphysema, analogous to the use of elastase instillation in rodent models of emphysema and 1-antitrypsin deficiency (56). Several molecular targets of cigarette smoke have also been identified that alter the ability of the immune defense system of the lung to fend off viral and bacterial Address for correspondence: R. E. Morty, Department of Lung Development and Remodeling, Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, Parkstrasse 1, D-61231 Bad Nauheim, Germany (e-mail: rory.morty@mpi-bn. mpg.de). Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol 318: L1010–L1015, 2020; First published April 1, 2020; doi:10.1152/ajplung.00110. 2020.