IFNA1 and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: In an ex vivo study conducted with bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) cells (95 % were macrophages) collected from 7 COPD patients and 10 healthy control subjects, the cells infected with live rhinovirus resulted in a 50 % impairment in IFN-α and IFN-λ release from the COPD group compared to control.