Further studies into the therapeutic potential of other autophagy inducers for exacerbations in chronic respiratory diseases have shown promise as well (Figure 2). These studies have demonstrated that rapamycin can induce autophagy and aid in the killing of different types of bacteria that are known to cause exacerbations [6,44,153,202]. Similarly, fisetin, which is an over the counter antioxidant used for brain health, induces autophagy [34,43] to improve bacterial clearance by ameliorating CFTR-autophagy dysfunction [35]. Thus, the use of various autophagy inducers shows promise in restoring the CFTR-autophagy pathway to treat exacerbations. However, future studies and clinical trials need to be conducted to evaluate and standardize the safety and efficacy of these treatments to provide benefit in human subjects as a part of ongoing clinical development.