In the current study, therefore, we employed a combination of approaches, including bioinformatic analysis of candidate functional variants, functional evaluation of transcription factor binding of variant by electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA), gene expression assays of FGF7 using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), chromatin conformation capture followed by RT-qPCR (3C-qPCR), and luciferase enhancer activity assays to characterize the COPD-associated candidate causal variant. The gene discussed is FGF7; the disease is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.