IPF study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Comprehensive analysis of immune events as contributor of disease progression in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
IRAS ID
230547
Contact name
Ling-Pei Ho
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Oxford
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a devastating lung scarring disease with no cure. From diagnosis, most patients progressively lose lung function leading to respiratory failure. Median survival is 3 years from diagnosis. This rate of decline is punctuated by periods of sudden deterioration (acute exacerbation of IPF or "AE-IPF") with mortality rate of 80% within 3 months of the acute event. There has been intense research into the cause of the condition and big strides have been made in this area. However, less has been done on understanding how and why the disease progress, what causes sudden deterioration and the role of infection and the immune cells in these declines. Our project focuses on the contribution of the body's immune system to disease deterioration and progression. It will help to map out how immune cells contribute to progression of disease with a specific focus on cells from the lungs as this information is currently lacking. We will do this by correlating the patient's disease progression with comprehensive scientific information of the immune cell types using the latest techniques of analysing immune cell type, their function and the kind of genes that these cells express. This project will provide crucial answers to major questions surrounding how disease worsens, the markers we can use to identify patients at risk of disease flares and phases of more rapid loss of lung function, and new drug targets to prevent or slow down disease progression.
REC name
South Central - Berkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/SC/0227
Date of REC Opinion
19 Apr 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion