Table 2.

Summary recommendations for future research

Research Question to be Addressed	Recommended Scientific Approach
What is (are) the environmental exposure(s) causing sarcoidosis and influencing diverse clinical phenotypes?	Studies to identify environmental exposures that are associated with extreme disease phenotypes
What are the immune mechanisms, including incompletely understood local innate and adaptive immune responses, that could be targeted to more effectively treat sarcoidosis?	Support efforts to develop relevant animal and in vitro disease models
	Support hypothesis-driven research to identify molecular mechanisms and potential therapeutic targets
What is the genetic basis of severe sarcoidosis phenotypes?	Leverage high-throughput, low-cost genome-wide technology
	Genome-wide association studies
	Gene sequencing
	Epigenetics
How does the host microbiome influence the risk for sarcoidosis or severe sarcoidosis phenotypes?	Support studies to comprehensively evaluate the microbiome of the lungs and gastrointestinal tract and correlate with clinical and immunological sarcoidosis phenotypes
What are the molecular pathways and biomarkers that contribute to chronic multisystem sarcoidosis, and how can this information contribute to improved care?	Conduct longitudinal studies to assess various candidate biomarkers that would serve to assist in establishing the diagnosis, prognosis, and response to treatment
How do we account for the complex interactions of multiple environmental and host factors as they relate to the phenotypic variability of sarcoidosis?	Bioinformatic analysis of comprehensive data sets derived from large patient cohorts followed longitudinally