Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) showed that the IRP2 gene (IREB2) confers susceptibility to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (Demeo et al., 2009; Chappell et al., 2011; Zhou et al., 2012) and lies within a lung cancer-associated locus (Hansen et al., 2010; Cho et al., 2012; Fehringer et al., 2012). This evidence concerns the gene IREB2 and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.