Understanding lung fibrosis
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Understanding lung fibrosis
IRAS ID
314940
Contact name
Selim Cellek
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Anglia Ruskin University
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Lung fibrosis is the scarring of the lung tissue which carries significant morbidity and mortality. The number of patients are expected to rise considerably due to Covid-19 infections. Since the number, efficacy and safety of drugs to treat lung fibrosis is extremely limited, there is an urgent unmet need to research and develop new anti-fibrotic drugs.
We would like to study a type of cell called "myofibroblast" which is generally accepted to be responsible for fibrosis. By studying myofibroblast, we envisage to gain further understanding on how it functions and how it causes fibrosis. More importantly, we can test already approved drugs on these cells in the laboratory with the aim of repurposing some of these drugs to prevent or reverse lung fibrosis.
We are proposing to obtain some of the healthy lung tissue during lung resection surgery for for the treatment of benign and malignant pathologies. This tissue would be discarded otherwise.
Our research team has more than 5 years experience in working with myofibroblasts; we have successfully isolated, characterised and tested myofibroblasts from two other fibrotic conditions. Adding lung myofibroblasts to this research programme will not only benefit patients with lung fibrosis but also other patients with other fibrotic conditions.REC name
London - Surrey Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/PR/0499
Date of REC Opinion
25 Apr 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion