October 15, 2012
Sheffield scientist makes important discovery
A
scientist we support at the University of Sheffield has made an
important finding in the fight against a rare but devastating
condition of high blood pressure in the lungs.
Dr Abdul Hameed is supported by one of our
Clinical Research Training Fellowships. These awards are given to
doctors to carry out original research, which could help find new
treatments or improve care for patients in the future.
Thanks to your donations, we awarded
more than £170,000 to support Dr Hameed in his
project to understand the causes of pulmonary arterial
hypertension. After three years of hard work his team - led by Dr
Allan Lawrie - have found that tackling a protein called TRAIL
could hold hope for helping those affected by the disease.
Our Research Advisor Dr Shannon Amoils
said:
We urgently need to find new treatments for people with pulmonary arterial hypertension
“We
urgently need to find new treatments for people with pulmonary
arterial hypertension, a condition which can have a
devastating effect on people’s quality of life and
is often fatal. This study shows that a protein called TRAIL has a
role in the disease by driving the overproduction of cells lining
the lungs’ blood vessels. This overproduction of cells is one of
the factors leading to high blood pressure in the lungs.
“Importantly, the researchers show that, in
rodents, blocking TRAIL using an antibody dampens down this high
cell turnover and reduces the disease severity. There is still a
long way to go, but the hope is that the TRAIL antibody might be
developed into a new treatment for patients in the future.”
Earlier this year, Dr Hameed won a prestigious
Young Investigator Award from the British Society
for Cardiovascular Research for his work studying TRAIL in
pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Since the beginning of last year, we've
awarded more than £1m to research in Sheffield.
Top cardiovascular researchers there include zebrafish expert
Dr Tim
Chico and Professor Paul Evans. But
we couldn't fund our research without your support. Please donate to help fund our life-saving science.