An important driver of EMT is TGF-β1 (transforming growth factor-beta) which is overexpressed in all these chronic airway diseases (Harris et al., 2011) and also widely demonstrated not only to be a modifier of CF lung disease severity (Drumm et al., 2005) but also described to degrade CFTR mRNA (Mitash et al., 2019), inhibit CFTR biogenesis and prevent functional rescue of p.Phe508del-CFTR (Snodgrass et al., 2013). Here, CFTR is linked to cystic fibrosis.