Indian scientist in team that nears taming fatal lung disease

Cystic fibrosis, a fatal lung disease that kills 500 each year and is diagnosed in 1,000 people each year, may finally be tamed with a team of scientists including an Indian, stepping closure to the discovery of a drug that can control the menace.

According to a Zee News report , “… Jayaraj Rajagopal and his colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital first created induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, and then used those cells to create human disease-specific functioning lung epithelium, the tissue that lines the airways and is the site of the most lethal aspect of CF (Cystic fibrosis), where the genes cause irreversible lung disease and inexorable respiratory failure.”

The tissue contains the delta-508 mutation, the gene responsible for about 70 percent of all CF cases and 90 percent of the ones in the United States besides the G551D mutation, the report said .

A gene, the G551D mutation, is involved in about 2 percent of CF cases and the one cause of the disease for which there is now a drug, Zee News report mentioned.

Making it clear that the drug is not for cure but control of CF, Rajagopal was quoted as saying, “We’re not talking about a cure for CF; we’re talking about a drug that hits the major problem in the disease. This is the enabling technology that will allow that to happen in a matter of years.” Read the full article here