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Study Offers Hope to Those with Lung Diseases
Michael Blackburn, Ph.D.
An important step toward the
treatment of asthma, chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease
and pulmonary fibrosis has been
reported in the Journal of Clinical
Investigation by researchers at
The University of Texas
Medical School at Houston.
Michael Blackburn, Ph.D., professor
of biochemistry and molecular biology at the
Medical School, and his colleagues were the first to
show that using a drug to block the pathway of adenosine – an important signaling molecule – helped to
alleviate symptoms of chronic lung diseases, while
offering help and hope to those struggling to
breathe.
From earlier research, Blackburn, who also holds a faculty appointment at the UT Graduate School of Biomedical Science at Houston, already knew that adenosine played an important role in the progression of chronic lung ailments.
“Several years ago, we generated genetically modified
mice that developed chronic lung disease in response to elevations in the signaling molecule adenosine,”
Blackburn said. “With this animal model in
hand, we set out to identify the specific signaling
pathways responsible for adenosine-mediated pulmonary
inflammation and damage.”
Inflammation of the lungs is one of the features of
chronic lung diseases. “The degree of inflammation
correlates with the severity of the disease,” Blackburn
said. “It is likely that the development of drugs that
can control pulmonary inflammation will be useful in
the treatment of chronic lung diseases.”
With that in mind, Blackburn and his colleagues
collaborated with CV Therapeutics Inc. (CVT), a biopharmaceutical company in California, to test a
promising drug that blocks an adenosine pathway
called A2BAR.
“We used this drug to treat our mouse models with lung disease and found that, by blocking the A2BAR, we could improve features of chronic lung disease,” Blackburn said. “This included preventing pulmonary inflammation, pulmonary fibrosis and destruction of the alveolar airways, which is commonly known as emphysema.”
Based on this work, CV Therapeutics has initiated clinical trials to investigate the efficacy of the drug in the treatment of these chronic lung diseases.
By Camille Webb, Medical School